metrology
On the shop floor of the Roger
Béteille A350 XWB Final
Assembly Line in Toulouse,
France instruments measure
and analyze an Airbus A350 under construction. While
the aircraft is being made, that data is being fed into an
enterprise wide digital system, where it can be used by
test engineers and influence the aircraft’s design,
manufacture and recycling.
This is a key part of Airbus’ Industry 4.0 vision.
Another part of this vision is that the production testing
on the Final Assembly Line (FAL) in the future will be
more automated. Airbus says, “Compared to today, we
plan for aircraft systems to be auto-testable, thus saving
precious time in the assembly process.”
Airbus is seeking to increase the production output
of all of its models, from the A320 family to the
A350-900 and its larger -1000 sibling and automation of
production testing will help achieve that.
The in-line testing that goes on during manufacture
is not yet entirely automated and Airbus describes it as
“semi-automatized tests” that are performed using “a full
computer-aided testing system.” Whether it is the A320
family or the A350s, Airbus says that, “the computer
aided testing system is based on the same architecture
for all Airbus programs, as such there are very few
differences between them.” During production tests, all
1 // Operators John
Huxley (left) and John
Kennedy at the controls
of the new drilling
machine on the A350
jig, north factory,
Broughton, UK
(Credit: Airbus)
2 // This component for
the A350 XWB’s vertical
tail plane is produced at
Airbus’ Stade, Germany
site, a processing plant
for carbon fibre
reinforced plastic
(CFRP) components
(Credit: Airbus)
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