Aerospace industry has many challenges ahead: cost pressure, changing market conditions, and society’s demand for sustainable mobility. Automation and digitalisation are helping airplane manufacturers to take up these challenges and reach climate targets like ‘Fly Net Zero’.
Therefore, Siemens offers a wide range of solutions for aviation along the entire value chain – from the concept and design until an aircraft is ready for take-off and through end of service. Siemens portfolio consists of design and simulation software, manufacturing automation and management, robotics, composite solutions, intelligent building automation management systems and lifecycle management software.
Building automation management systems
Siemens’ vision for digital transformation goes beyond connectivity and traceability. Connecting data is just the beginning. By leveraging Siemens Xcelerator – their open, digital business platform – companies can make their data work for them with generative design and closed-loop optimisation to help the aerospace and defense industry accomplish more than ever imagined.
Siemens’ vision for digital transformation goes beyond connectivity and traceability
With Siemens Xcelerator, customers benefit from the full openness of technology, an extensive portfolio of end-to-end solutions – from multi-domain design and engineering to manufacturing, asset management and optimisation – and the equal interaction of market players, partners, suppliers and customers in a broad ecosystem.
Digital transformation maturity
Digitalisation enables customers to take complexity head on, allowing greater productivity and innovation. Siemens Xcelerator offers a portfolio of software designed around industry best practices to provide visibility, collaboration, automation and traceability.
At Siemens, they leverage the digital twin and a roadmap of industry-specific business workflows to digitally and continuously connect all tasks and processes in the value chain – including suppliers. Siemens solutions span the entire product lifecycle to help customers in the aerospace and defence industry advance digital transformation maturity in the critical areas of systems, design/engineering, manufacturing, and service lifecycle. Customers realise impact by implementing software based on the challenges they need to solve and priorities for their business.
Highly adaptable production
Siemens is consistently integrating IT and software capabilities into the world of automation
Combining the information technology (IT) from the top floor with the operational technology (OT) from the shop floor enables precise data-driven decision making. This leads to a continuous closed loop of optimisation, both for the product and the production. A seamless data flow along the entire value chain bridges the gaps between information silos and connects everything from design to realisation.
Industrial Operations X is Siemens’ continuously growing, interoperable portfolio geared towards production engineering, execution, and optimisation which Siemens is adding to its portfolios on Siemens Xcelerator. With Industrial Operations X, Siemens is consistently integrating IT and software capabilities into the world of automation. This becomes possible due to for instance the industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), their huge variety of Edge Apps, the cloud solution Insights Hub (formerly known as MindSphere) and Mendix, their low-code app development tool. Hence, aerospace manufacturers can speed up their transition from automated to highly adaptable production.
Efficient part manufacturing
Manufacturing airplanes requires a flexible and efficient production. Based on Siemens’ unique experience in machine operation and motion control and aviation know-how, Siemens can provide solutions for optimising engine and structure part production and shape accuracy and surface quality. Aircraft propulsion is undergoing ongoing changes: Turbine (Engine) technology is getting better at fuel-efficiency and emission reduction.
Siemens can provide solutions for optimising engine and structure part production
With SINUMERIK ONE, their digital native CNC, aerospace manufacturers can take high-end part manufacturing to the next level. The CNC system combines maximum speed with highest possible path precision when machining free-form surfaces and fluid CNC operation even in high-load scenarios. Based on the SINUMERIK ONE digital twin, machine development and commissioning, production planning and workpiece machining, machine expansions and services can be transferred from the real world to a virtual environment, which significantly speeds up production.
Saving significant emissions
Moreover, CNC Robots can be used not only for drilling and milling technologies but also for additive manufacturing, painting applications and composite manufacturing – the highest path accuracy, flexibility and mobility are guaranteed.
Lighter, faster and more efficient aircrafts are needed to reduce emission in aviation. Additive manufacturing can play a decisive advantage. Part design can be optimised thanks to completely new construction methods. By utilising the design freedom in additive manufacturing, weight and thus required material can be significantly reduced – optimising both production costs and carbon footprint of the parts. In addition, lighter parts are also saving significant emissions during the operation of the aircraft. Another way to lighter parts and a more sustainable aviation is using composite manufacturing with fiber composite parts.
Final-assembly processes
Reliable and high-quality aircrafts depend on efficient coordination of (global) supply chains
Reliable and high-quality aircrafts depend on efficient coordination of (global) supply chains, synchronised production operations and coordinated pre-assembly and final-assembly processes. Opcenter, Siemens’ Manufacturing Execution System, sends individual configuration information to the correct stations on the production line.
It continuously monitors production to ensure high-quality manufacturing and assembly. To overcome the challenges of the future, aerospace manufacturers need to transform traditional production and logistics processes to more dynamic and efficient ones. The platform SIMOCRANE and Automated Guided Vehicles (AGV) e. g. SIMOVE realise flexible and even self-organising logistic concepts. Siemens owned Platforms like Simocrane or Simove can realise flexible and even self-organising logistic concepts.
Efficient network infrastructure
Siemens customers can benefit from their unique expertise in industrial communication and networking. Siemens offers not only numerous identification and localisation solutions, but also efficient network infrastructure. With Atos, the pioneer in digital transformation and cyber security solutions, Siemens guarantees network security, Wi-Fi and remote communication.
Siemens also provides solutions for industry-specific services focused on optimal asset management such as trainings and support hotlines, spare parts, repairs and retrofits. On the path to digital production, this portfolio can help the aerospace manufacturers identify untapped optimisation, avoid unplanned downtime and improve production by better integration in IT processes and modern data analytics.
