Creation of an Experimental Engineering Toolbox for the Digital Transformation of Manual Jet Engine Assembly

Abstract

The fast and safe motion of goods and people is one of the foundations of the modern world. Jet aircraft is the fastest transport at the moment along with high-speed trains. Accordingly, both production and maintenance of aircrafts are an important task of our modern industrial environment as well. Modern aircraft engines require appropriate care and understanding of design and manufacturing. This is even more important, as the production of aerospace engines remains a manual process in many cases with limited data sources. Thus, quality control will need to take into account verification of manufacturing and assembly steps through specific checks and controls whilst implementing additional data sources. Automation of tasks still is at a low level. In this article a review of the challenges with regard to controls, automation and process and technical understanding for aerospace engine production and repair is provided. As this requires the collaboration of many teams and partners, an improvement and step change towards deeper understanding and process efficiency is required. As many operations remain manual, innovations for how humans interact with the technology and collaborate with an industrial environment are needed. The project in this article demonstrates the creation and usage of the proposed solutions for collaboration, troubleshooting and error correction.