JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #138 - January/February 2021 - 24

MANUFACTURlNG automation

Improving productivity and
efficiency with automated kitting system
Global aerospace company Magellan Aerospace has ordered and
plans to integrate an automated kitting solution from composite
industrialisation specialist Airborne. The delivery to Magellan
Aerospace in Winnipeg, Canada, marks the starting point of
Airborne's global expansion into the North American market.
The solution is tailored to the specific requirements of Magellan
Aerospace and will support their goal to reduce material waste
and increase productivity and repeatability through automation.

A

irborne's Automated Kitting
solution increases cutting and
kitting productivity by increasing
capacity, reducing the amount of manual
labour, and minimizing material scrap. It
also enables a flexible and digital workflow. The translation from nesting files
to machine controls and sorting optimization is fully automated by Airborne's
proprietary algorithm on-the-fly. At
any moment, the production manager
can change the ply nest and the system
follows, no programming is needed. The
system also ensures full digital tracking
of the sorting and sequencing process,
thus eliminating kitting mistakes.
The Automated Kitting solution is
scheduled to be installed at Magellan
Aerospace's Winnipeg facility in early
2021. Several customized features tailored to Magellan's unique requirements
will enable flexible use and further increase productivity. Initially, the kitting
solution will be used to support efficient
and cost-effective manufacturing of composite horizontal stabilizer assemblies
for the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning
II fighter aircraft. Airborne's Automated
Kitting solution is ideally suited to be tailored to the specific needs and material
requirements of any production program
for the aerospace industry, or other
industrial applications.

24

"

interview

Jeff Pastula,
Director of Business Procurement and IT
Magellan Aerospace
Arno van Mourik,
CEO
Airborne
Dr Mattia Di Francesco,
Business Development Manager
Airborne

JEC Composites Magazine: Could you
please give us a brief presentation of
your companies?

Arno van Mourik: Airborne

has just had its 25th anniversary but
we could not celebrate it due to many
reasons. The main reason is that I feel
we are younger; we are about 5 or 6
years old in the shape of the company
that we are in today. We started 25 years
ago as an engineering company focused
on both mechanics and composites and
we gradually changed into designers of
composite parts but in parallel, we were
developing solutions for the oil and
gas industry. We mainly developed the
production processes and machinery

	 jec composites magazine / N°138 January - February 2021

to produce because at the time, the
technology was not available to do that.
We built a factory from 2012 to 2014,
but Airborne Oil & Gas is not part of
our holding anymore. We decided that
it would be better to work with some
strategic investors who could push the
company forward. In 2015, we decided
on what we can do best: translate composite knowledges in term of processes
into equipment.
Of course, we are not Magellan in
term of size and production of parts
in aerospace, but we do some work
in aerospace, so we are aware of the
challenges companies face. Especially
companies in the western world, we talk
about production parts, production of
composite materials in general and the
labour intensity and the qualification
that comes with it. We have been
focusing on digitizing and automating
composite production. You can either
do that by starting from scratch and
rethinking everything, like we did with
Oil & Gas, or by automating some
parts of the process without putting
everything on hold. This is what we
have set out to do, we look at parts of
JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #138 - January/February 2021

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