Case Study - Bombardier Aerospace, Montreal, Canada
Bombardier Aerospace, based in Montreal, Canada is a world leader in the design and manufacture of innovative aviation products and services for the regional, business and amphibious aircraft markets. In 2004 it began a project to replace its existing Unix-based CAM/nesting system, which had not improved in nesting efficiency for some time. Bombardier Aerospace embarked on benchmarking several systems.
Phil Bagshaw, Senior Application Specialist at Bombardier Aerospace commented; In addition to the quantifiable benefits there were also a number of other features that saved more time and reduced the possibility for error, such as the automatic printing of part/ply information. “Prior to JETCAM Expert parts were misidentified up to 30% of the time, causing delays .” Bombardier is already on its third installation of JETCAM Expert in its Saint Laurent facility, with its Belfast facility also now a long-time user of the system. Further installation projects are also under review. Phil concluded; “The whole project was delivered to our specification. The dedication and commitment from JETCAM to have people onsite and developing with us exceeded anything we had expected and helped to complete the installation, with the first project completed to schedule in only a couple of months. The composite project was based primarily on waste reduction, however there have been many other benefits which have continued to provide considerable additional savings.”
Machines:
- American GFM Ultrasonic Cutter
- Multicam Router
- Shoda Quad 4 Router
System in use:
Benefits achieved:
- Replaced outdated Unixbased system that had poor nesting efficiency.
- Speed of nesting MUCH faster than all other benchmarked systems.
- Software paid for itself in around 2 months because of composite material savings alone.
- 500% faster programming time.
- 375% improvement in nesting time with dramatically improved nest efficiency.
- Machine cycle time improved by 5% due to optimised cutting path (120 hours per year).
- Part identification improved due to autoprinting of ply information.
- Maintenance cost decreased over previous system.
- Support needs are much less than before
- Minimal training requirements, with staff knowing the basics in 2 hours.
- 8000 CAD files with problem geometry fixed automatically in a couple of hours.
- 'Automatic ply mirroring during nesting' functionality developed on request.
See also:
