Recipient of the 2003 Defense Manufacturing Excellence Award

Recipient of the 2003 Defense Manufacturing Excellence Award High Throughput Production Processing of 5 -Axis Parts Problem: • Airframe structural parts of aluminum or titanium are frequently designed with draft angles or other geometric features that do not lend themselves to production on 3 -axis machine tools. • 5 -axis machine tools will make them efficiently but are difficult to program. • Depots increasing find themselves required to make these parts for aging aircraft. • Knowledge based NC programming systems would provide major productivity benefit. Do. D Partners: • US Air Force: Warner Robins Air Logistics Center • US Navy: Fleet Readiness Center East Industry Partners: • Cincinnati Machine • Technology Answers • Sikorsky Aircraft • Boeing • Vought Aircraft Technology Application: • Technology Answers’ Cimskil is core technology • Add automated five machined feature recognition • Enhance automated process planning to handle 5 -axis features • Define standard set of cutting tools and determine optimum cutting parameters (feeds, speeds, depth of cut) • Embed optimized process parameter calculations into Cimskil Readiness Benefits: Cycle Time: • Achieved NC programming productivity increase of up to 80% • Achieved machining time decreases up to 50% Reliability: • Automation reduces opportunity for human error, produces more reliably accurate parts Availability: • Greater throughput results in increased parts availability Cost: • Increased manufacturing planning productivity reduces non productive time and its cost