Industry
Manufacturing
Future-Ready Manufacturing: Partnering in your journey to a sustainable manufacturing enterprise
Highlights
- A successful net-zero transition for the aerospace industry needs to prioritize sustainability and circularity at all stages of the manufacturing lifecycle to reduce carbon footprint.
- Being sustainable is a challenge in the aircraft manufacturing industry which involves globally spread-out manufacturing units and managing complex supply chains.
- Using lightweight materials for manufacturing, monitoring energy usage, optimizing manufacturing process, and improving battery technology are some of the ways to ensuring sustainability for the industry.
The net-zero pledge
In keeping with the Paris Agreement, aerospace and defense (A&D) companies, like their peers in other industries, have pledged to reach net-zero emissions by 2050.
While positive steps are being taken, the path to net zero is not without challenges. The A&D industry contributes about one billion metric tons of CO2 annually, which is expected to triple by 2050 as the demand for aircraft continues to surge post the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 42,000 new passenger aircraft are estimated to be delivered between 2023 and 2042, which will only add to the emissions.
Industry players must adopt sustainable manufacturing practices and optimize resources to reduce their carbon footprint and improve circularity in the ecosystem. Adopting such practices will mean a relook at the competencies, experience, and capabilities of the industry. A&D companies need to integrate carbon reduction strategies across the ecosystem, which may sometimes mean collaborating with competitors as well.
Challenges along the way
Environmental factors have become centric to innovation, design, manufacture, and maintenance and upgrades in the A&D industry.
The aircraft manufacturing lifecycle (see Figure 1) starts with mining and processing of raw materials, manufacturing of parts, components, and assemblies, integrating the aircraft, maintenance and upgrades, and finally overhauling and reusing some components when the aircraft is scrapped. Mining companies extract ore and process it to produce steel, aluminum, and alloys, which are then transported to designated companies for the manufacture of various aircraft parts, components, sub-assemblies, and large assemblies. The waste is sent back to the processing factories for recycling. The parts and assemblies are sent ahead to airframers.
Figure 1: The aircraft manufacturing lifecycle
Manufacturing the tiniest bit is as intricate as it can get
The smallest of components in an aircraft – a nut, bolt, or rivet – goes through a long-drawn manufacturing process (see Figure 2), each step of which results in emissions. For example, right from mining and extracting the ore and subjecting it to heat treatment to machining and shaping the part, and finally, surface finish and painting – there is notable carbon footprint from all of these.
Figure 2: What it takes to manufacture the smallest component
While aerospace manufacturers use lean manufacturing principles to ensure optimal consumption of energy and resources, but if modifications to a product are sought – which is not a rare occurrence – we can’t be certain that the altered specifications will be delivered keeping in mind the lean philosophy and manufacturing processes thereof. Moreover, the infrastructure, manufacturing facility, employee facilities, and necessary auxiliary processes all consume energy and resources.
Takes a global ecosystem to assemble an aircraft
Aircraft manufacturing is a complex process that involves multiple stakeholders spread across the globe. Each step in Figure 3 would need consumables in the form of energy and natural resources and would produce greenhouse gases, liquid and solid waste, and other by-products.
Figure 3: The aircraft final assembly line (FAL) workflow
Further, the assembly process would not only require man and machines but also a range of utilities such as power distribution and oil companies, which would have carbon footprint of their own. It is therefore critical to understand that while ensuring sustainable workflows is mandatory, the transition to a net-zero environment cannot happen in isolation.
Designing it part by part
Airframers need to weave in sustainable and circular processes into each step of the manufacturing chain.
Using lightweight materials for production, embedding circularity across processes, and using digital technologies to increase operational efficiencies are some ways manufacturers can limit their carbon footprint and reduce the environmental impact of their operations.
Use lightweight materials
The industry is aggressively investing in research to identify novel and lightweight materials and composites. That will help in building lighter aircraft which in turn will consume less fuel and be more sustainable. For example, a 1lb reduction in aircraft weight can save about $10,000 in fuel costs. Lightweight materials are also more resistant to heat and corrosion, provide higher strength to weight ratio, and generate significantly less waste during the manufacturing process.
In addition to offering better fuel efficiency and producing lesser emissions, these materials will promote circular opportunities for composites as those are also used in passenger cars, utilities, and construction industries. At present, lightweight materials are mainly used by aero interior and structure suppliers.
AI-based engineering tools are being used to design and simulate the performance and effect of composites on aircraft performance. Additive manufacturing is being increasingly leveraged to produce complex parts using lesser quantity of a material, resulting in less waste. Research is underway on advanced coating technologies to prevent corrosion prevent, thereby making lighter and more efficient aircraft, with the sole aim to reduce carbon emissions across the A&D manufacturing lifecycle.
Embrace circularity
Circularity can be achieved by reducing, reusing, and recycling aircraft material, parts, components, and systems. Besides using lightweight materials, airframers should work toward optimizing the shopfloor and aircraft maintenance processes, introduce new closed-loop recycling systems, and implement methods to recover useful material from end-of-life stock. For example, the production of aircraft landing gear in traditional manufacturing facilities could entail raw material wastage, ranging between 60-80%, due to legacy tooling and machining processes.
Figure 4: Circularity in aircraft manufacturing
Monitor energy usage
Aircraft assembly infrastructure is huge; these are some of the largest factories in the world., And they consume unbelievable amounts of energy across the manufacturing lifecycle. Introducing energy efficient technologies and practices would involve high cost of implementation, popularizing such technologies across the wide supply chain, and ensuring regulatory compliance. This process involves:
- Identifying processes and activities that consume large quantities of energy
- Reducing energy usage with data-backed analysis
- Assessing opportunities to reduce energy consumption and defining new processes
- Involving employees and shop and project execution team in the sustainability journey by educating them on energy monitoring and reduction processes
Optimize processes
Rethinking and recalibrating operations on a regular basis not only paves the way for sustainable manufacturing, but also results in effective process flow leading to on-time deliveries and increased customer satisfaction. We outline a few interventions in this regard:
Lifecycle assessment (LCA) framework: Such a framework can be used to evaluate and compare scenarios and their environmental impact to take informed decisions on opportunities and challenges.
Process modulation: This involves breaking down the entire manufacturing process sequence into multiple phases and independently evaluating material or energy wastages for each slice. The concepts of sustainability and circularity would then need to be embedded into each step to ensure the overall process generates minimal waste. A host of AI-based interventions are possible during the design and simulation phase for enhancing digitalization, as shown in Figure 5. The execution phase includes elaborate energy saving measures which are then effectively monitored.
Figure 5: Embedding sustainability into the shop floor
Digital twins: Digital twins of machines and factories help to optimize the process flow and rewire operations for higher productivity. They are being used in multiple scenarios like real-time visibility of asset operation, predicting machine failures, 3D visualization to reconfigure, design for higher throughput, and sustainability considerations.
Predictive optimization: Predictive maintenance is being used by airframers to reduce machine downtime, increase utilization, and avoid adverse quality issues. AI-powered solutions, which provide data-driven insights, are helping airframers create more predictable and adaptable production facilities and prioritize alerts to enhance cost savings. Predictive MRO is fast becoming a critical requirement to reduce the overall maintenance costs.
Looking ahead
Aerospace manufacturers are racing against time to meet the net-zero targets.
Deeper participation by all the stakeholders, including the research and academia community, is critical to help the industry stride toward the goal. Some green shoots are already visible. Innovative digital technologies, embedded throughout the aerospace manufacturing lines, are helping the industry inch towards its target. The next two decades are expected to be daunting yet exciting for this industry.
