DigiProp: A collaboration between Dowty Propellers, MTC, AMRC and NCC

INDUSTRY 4.0 TECHNOLOGIES FOR COMPOSITE AEROSPACE PROPELLER MANUFACTURING

The DigiProp consortium, led by Dowty Propellers, is a collaborative research project that has developed technologies within a new digital infrastructure, delivering benefits in propulsion performance and cost efficiency. Through work package 4 of DigiProp, Dowty and the MTC have developed and demonstrated new smart factory concepts for more efficient production of propellers systems.

The Challenge

• Develop and validate new factory concepts for more efficient production of composite blades and propellers utilising digital manufacturing technologies

• Realise improvements in operational metrics such as Overall Equipment Effectiveness and production lead time

• Assess hardware, software and systems architectures that can support the production of the next generation of Dowty Propellers products

A Collaborative Approach

• Cross-functional MTC team making use of a wide range of technology and industry knowledge

• A collaborative approach, integrating with other work packages and project partners

• Prioritised ranking of digital technologies based on Dowty requirements

• Collaboration with a wide range of technology providers to select and configure the most appropriate solutions and plan adoption

The Outcome

• Creation of the ‘DigiProp Demonstration Cell’; a testbed environment to prove out technologies for data capture, processing, transfer, aggregation, storage, analysis and visualisation

• Development of Discrete Event Simulation Digital Twin of Dowty propeller value stream to generate intelligent production schedules

• Demonstration and adoption planning of technologies including: assisted manual assembly operations, real-time location tracking for parts and assets, machine vision quality assessment, Model-Based Definition workflows, Innovative Non Destructive Testing approaches

• Development of a toolset to manage the journey from objective setting, through technology selection
  and development to implementation

Benefits To The Client

• Reduced risk of implementation for new technologies via proven tools, suppliers, workflows and integration approaches

• Skills and roles identified for future production methods

• New capabilities developed, e.g. smart scheduling, composite blade inspection

• Testing of competing options for hardware/ software/ architectures in a production relevant environment

• Gathering user feedback to improve system designs

• Finding and mitigating integration and cyber security issues in a safe environment, without affecting production

• ROI estimates before purchasing full scale HW/SW