EMBRACING AEROSPACE MANUFACTURING COMPETENCIES

August 2, 2021 2:20 pm

Industry experts reckon newer technologies, additive manufacturing trends, safety, digitalisation and Atmanirbharta in the aerospace industry on growth trajectory, recovery momentum.
Aerospace, the high technology industry involved in building aircraft and manufacturing aircraft parts for maintenance is engaged in the R&D and manufacture of flight vehicles, drones, airplanes; military aircraft, rocket and missile systems, space launch vehicles, and spacecrafts.
Aerospace market is expected to recover from pandemic hibernation and to grow at a CAGR of 6.5% from 2021 and reach $358.8 billion in 2023. Global aerospace industry is worth $838 billion; OEMs, suppliers and manufacturers comprise 54% of all activity, which is indicative of enormous challenges and opportunities. The commercial aerospace sector is expected to recover slowly, as travel demand is not expected to return to pre–pandemic levels before 2024 as studies go along.
OEM Update conducted a conference cum panel discussion on “Embracing Aerospace Manufacturing Competencies.” The distinguished panellists: Priyesh Mehta, Director, Imaginarium; Ashik Appanna, Head of Key Accounts at Carl Zeiss India, IQS Division; Ramesh Kumar Sankaran, AGM – Marketing, Godrej Aerospace; Shinto Joseph, Director- South East Asia Operations, LDRA Technology Pvt Ltd., and Sankar Narayanan, Vertical Market Manager – Aerospace & Defence at Siemens, all coming from aerospace industry participated during the interactive session and deliberated the challenges, emerging opportunities and new trends which are finding the new base along with digital transformation intruding aerospace.
Digital technology is current focus. With perspective on industrial quality solutions and strategy for global aerospace, share insights about the upcoming trends in aerospace metrology for manufacturing processes benefits during and beyond pandemic period.
Sharing his viewpoint, Appanna detailed, when you look at all this current situation, where we need digital solutions, we in Carl Zeiss, have implemented solutions in line with Industry 4.0 solutions, we have certain software which connect the machines, which go by and not only when you are working on the machine. On one hand, you have to have the machine running and the secondly you also have to have some people busy. So, we have some software and we have some connectivity with respect to other machines; when once the program running the machine is ready, the output data goes to the concerned person. And then this output can be uploaded into the Cloud Function and can be viewed at any part of the world. Suppose, when it comes to aerospace, you have these big giants like Boeing and Airbus, they would have some vendors out in India. And one thing that is easy is – when customers have machines, the programs and inter-changeability can happen easily and over a very quick period of time. And, if the customer or if the person here who is a supplier wants to match the results or work with the customer in the western world, that can be easily communicated through the digital meters we have and also with respect to reporting for everything, he can match and he can work on the solutions required based on what the customer needs, is what we see.
When we talk about emerging technologies, Indian space has ample opportunities, be it civil or defence. With increasing number of aircrafts, safety becomes a priority. Do the software embedded systems sound alert about impending risks and how safety certification methodologies could be of use? Joseph mentioned categorically, safety is close to my heart. I have been in this field for years. We need to see that from two angles. One is the Indian context; we are okay with safety in India. Globally, that is not the way, everything starts with safety. And, overall, if we are seeing an increasing trend towards people, they are taking safety more seriously. And, if you really want to convert India as a manufacturing base for aerospace, we need to get that safety culture as a practice for everybody.
Before every global OEM first thing what they ask is, what is your internal practice? Are you complying to so and so safety standards? Because, they are really worried about the safety implications in case there is an accident, there is a huge penalty. Not only just reputation, but also there is a business risk involved. So broadly, you can say the civil is more worried about safety.
When it comes to defence, they are little more relaxed. For example, we have the Indian Space program and wanting human space program too but there probably you may not have to go to the extremes of civil certification. So, you can have little bit of relaxation on certain ground but safety is paramount. And I always recommend that every work you should start with Just safety in mind. Then you are there in aerospace. Otherwise, you are not there.
While dealing with emerging trends, additive manufacturing is incident to creating lighter components and parts and supports aerospace manufacturing. Is there any inspection standard as a solution that maximises operational performance, improving effective density and integrating competencies in manufacturing?
To this, Mehta explained, additive manufacturing or 3D printing is really changing the way how manufacturers write from OEMs, and tier one, tier two suppliers as well are producing complex parts. And whenever, we talk about complex parts, we all know that aerospace is the most highly regulated industry, apart from medical, which manufacturers work with, so, whenever you are dealing with regulations, inspection is always key. And, whenever you have inspection, obviously, you are going to talk about what is the porosity level what is the, mechanical strength, what is the physical and mechanical and chemical properties overall. So, techniques like reverse engineering, spectroscopy, CT scan, etc., all these techniques definitely help people like us who are producing parts for the aerospace industry, that is why metal additive manufacturing, has to qualify for other certifications.
Technology transformation is the key as the technologies such as the cloud, robotics, and AI are enabling transformations across the aerospace industry too. Besides, engineering urban air mobility to reduce traffic congestion, in what other areas the digitalisation for aero manufacturing can be of advantage in outgoing pandemic crisis!
Narayanan deliberated that’s a very good question on the aspect of digitalisation in terms of manufacturing. So, the aerospace component manufacturing or aerospace industry as such is going through a phenomenal transformation right from the early 70s. And till today, if you compare, the transformation is tremendous. We speak about different revolutions industry, industrial revolutions, and currently we are in the industrial revolution 4.0. What does it affect over here in the manufacturing? So, you design a part, which was not the same way 20 years back for the same aircraft.

Today, the number of components and the technology has increased. Newer technologies are coming into picture. Additive Manufacturing is also the newer technology in terms of the aerospace component manufacturing. You start from a part design; you are integrating your engineering and planning team together with the production team. There should be a synchronisation happening or handshakes happening between different departments and the aerospace industry.
So that is what we say. A change in the design, which is found out at the production level, can be directly communicated back to the design team. So, newer areas you rightly pointed out the urban mobility is day by day increasing and the air mobility is the future and also, the drones which is predominantly used today and unmanned aerial vehicles, which is used in the civil as well as on the military area. These are the newer areas; I would say the step next to the aerospace industry because more similar kind of manufacturing which is applicable applied after is here. And today we are going to see about -in a short information about how effectively you can manage the automation of the digitalisation part in your manufacturing process.
If we consider pandemic as gateway to opening opportunity; we learnt Atmanirbharta which in many of the applicable ways, is contributing to manufacturing. How do you view at DRDO technologies or more developments as the emerging opportunities to aid manufacturing? Sankaran remarked, with regards to the way it has happened over the last one year, we’ve all seen something which has happened once in a lifetime, the Covid-19 pandemic. So, it has affected a lot of things, the global civilisation was down, the domestic sector has really seen a lot of momentum gathering, the government’s Make in India initiative, especially for aerospace in different sectors, the opening up of the defence sector, private sector privatisation through defence reforms has given Indian companies a lot of opportunities to prove themselves.
One of the first steps that was there towards Atmanirbharta program was actually the banning of 101 list of items last year, which will be banned over a period of time for import substitution subsequently. This year, the government has come up with a positive list of 108 items. So, in total about 209 items have been banned for import over a period of time. So, this gives a lot of opportunity for the private industries to look at the technologies required by the government and also you don’t force themselves to start manufacturing them in a mass production for the government. It also brings a lot of clarity in terms of opportunities, the PPP model the public private partnership is also being new the same protocol encouraged in this particular sector. We also saw DRDO sharing or declaring 108 technologies to be developed by the private industries. So, this is again an opportunity for the private industry to participate in making this particular equipment developing these technologies, which will give them a lot of opportunities in future. Though, the TDS, the technology development scheme, if you develop this, if you are successful, you will get the production orders also subsequently. So, these are very good steps, which have really forged or gathered a lot of momentum to the last one.
We see a lot of policy support, otherwise, also from the government. We also see a lot of MSMEs, which are actually a very important part of this particular supply chain, almost 80 percent of the parts are manufactured in the domestic sector, by the MSMEs for the assemblies for these particular projects. But they will not actually end, they had a lot of challenges, in terms of infrastructure, and the funding, etc. But, with the policy initiatives, the government has set aside, 50,000 crores for MSMEs allowed global tenders for procurement up to 200 crores, mandated DPS used up to 25 percent of the total requirements for MSME offset multipliers and other liberal policies.
So, we see the state governments also giving a lot of support to the MSMEs. In total, we see a lot of support coming from MSMEs also in that way, So, overall, while the civil aerospace sector has seen a lot of reduction which reduced by up to 40 percent reduction, and we see the sector getting back to normalcy only by say around 2023. That is a prediction now, what we see the domestic sector has suddenly gained a lot of prominence, we also see that Indian Space sector is unlocking the potential for the private sector to participate. So, we see an overall a lot of opportunities that are coming up, especially in the defence sector and together with a lot of policy support.
Conclusively, the lockdown and social distancing norms imposed globally, resulted into economic slowdown due to pandemic outbreak, which led to a substantial reduction in passenger traffic, affecting aerospace manufacturing demand also. The advancement in the aerospace industry needs innovative strategies like adoption of ‘Robotic Process Automation, digital twins, 3D printing ‘for manufacturing, optimising and upgrading in the aerospace industry is gaining better prominence. And we see the sector getting back to normalcy say, only by around 2023.