Composite materials consist of fibers—in the aerospace industry, they are typically glass, carbon or kevlar—suspended in a matrix of epoxy resin.

The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) wants the industry to secure the country’s leadership in hypersonic weaponry. The request is no small feat.

Aerospace OEMs and their supply chains are evolving plans to manage the economic impact caused by the health-related shutdown last spring.

Extreme complexity is inherent to jet engines of all sizes, from those on a Boeing 777x to ones that power the smallest drone.

The concept of the digital twin in A&D was born in the 1970s, when NASA began employing full-scale virtual mock-ups of space capsules to forecast the performance of machines in outer space.

It is not surprising that the aerospace and defense industry exists at a higher plane of manufacturing. The components and end products being assembled must endure intense forces and pressures, are expected to perform without failure, and even the slightest mistake comes with extreme safety risks.

Avoiding product defects—and quickly finding and fixing those that occur—is a critical priority for all manufacturers.

A burr could become a danger point in the turbine engine. Classical manufacturing processes like turning, milling and grinding can lead to burr formation and unwanted sharp edges.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, many aerospace and defense manufacturers realized they were not resilient enough to withstand the resulting challenges in their supply chains.

Long-term customer contracts are a lofty goal for every contract manufacturer. At Shapes Precision Manufacturing (SPM), that goal is being achieved by a strong new management team using new fabricating processes initiated by a skilled workforce.

Honeywell Aerospace, part of global commercial and consumer engineering conglomerate Honeywell, produces a large number of the impellers and blisks used in commercial aeroplanes.

Three partners contributed their diverse manufacturing and machining experience—and their last initials—to found SPR Machine in 2002.

Teenaged Jamie Yelle daydreamed as he pushed a broom across the floor of his father’s machine shop. As he cleared a path through aluminum chips, filings, and scraps of metal around the machinery, he imagined what the company would look like if he were at the helm.

While recent advancements in machining centers have allowed for increased capability around high-volume operations, there are several factors that still necessitate the need for grinding.

To speed production and increase worker safety in the aerospace industry, major manufacturers are willing to pay a higher price for quality equipment.

Christoph Fedler, project director for equipment management at Rolls-Royce Germany, was facing a challenge: He needed to increase the available capacity of the prime discipline at the Oberursel facility, namely micrometer-precise grinding of curvic couplings.

To grow in today’s manufacturing world, shops need to consolidate operations, automate, increase efficiency, capture and analyze data and more, in order to fully leverage opportunities in thriving industries, such as aerospace.

Before the coronavirus pandemic upended normal life and essentially shut down commercial airliners, the aviation industry had a projected need for 40,000 new aircraft—planes, helicopters, air taxis, and unmanned aerial vehicles—in the next 20 years.

The warning about the vulnerability of the aerospace and defense industry’s supply chain came buried in the pages of a report issued by the consulting firm EY two years before the COVID-19 outbreak became a full-blown global crisis.

Tacoma, Washington-based Tool Gauge manufactures precision metal and plastic components and assemblies for the aerospace industry.

Since its first volume, in 2006, this publication has followed the story of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which, through trial and sometimes painful error, has gone from a daring design to a distributed manufacturing supply chain to, finally, a warplane in service around the globe.

Risk-management technology is beginning to help manufacturers cope with the supply-chain upheaval caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, said Thomas Derry, CEO of the Institute for Supply Management: “We are a lot better at managing risk than even 10 years ago.”