Starrag’s undisputed global leadership in providing mechanical solutions for the aerospace sector has already been strengthened by the addition of the Ecospeed Machining Center to the company’s Aerospace Competence Center in Switzerland, an initiative that demonstrates the group’s many years of experience in turbine blades, proximity and structural components. .
In fact, Ecospeed is known for its unsurpassed aluminum removal rates of up to 12 liters / min and is recognized worldwide as the most productive way to produce complex aluminum structural parts.
Over the years, Starrag has gained extensive and diverse knowledge of aerospace parts processing – not only on its own machines, but also on the overall production processes for these components. Now, at the group’s Swiss headquarters, visitors to a dedicated 2000 m2 hall can see and witness the capabilities of the Starrag’s Ecospeed (4-meter pallet) machine, along with other state-of-the-art NB, LX and STC petos centers. processing.
The machines are used to test and optimize new machine processes under production conditions, usually in response to customer orders.
In fact, the future development and production of Ecospeed machines has already moved from Germany to Switzerland, allowing Starrag to offer the aerospace industry a huge range of applications from a single source – in a way few very other companies in the world can.
This includes manufacturing solutions for blades, vanes, glitters, impellers, housings, gearboxes and turbine housings. The range also includes aluminum and titanium structural components of various sizes, plus landing gear components.
“The important thing is,” says Lee Scott, sales and application director at Starrag UK, “visitors to our booth at the Swiss Pavilion will also be able to learn how the Starrag Group (and, by definition, its machine users) will be ideally positioned to embrace any new manufacturing strategy as the global aviation industry readily adopts electric propulsion.
“We are really looking forward to joining OEM aircraft manufacturers and companies at all levels of supply to meet the growing amount of manufacturing capabilities offered by electric propulsion,” he continues.
“As a group, Starrag has historically always embraced such levels of progress – for example the Industrie 4.0 strategy and the VDMA (German Engineering Association) Blue Competence, as well as making our entire product range of machines / systems more energy efficient through eeMC (Energy Initiative). efficient processing center).
“The production of machines that meet customers’ needs for electrically driven machining will undoubtedly be the latest addition to Starrag’s sustainability achievements,” he says.
With a global customer base of companies involved in aircraft manufacturing – in particular OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers in North America and Asia, as well as in Europe – Mr Scott says Starrag’s focus, as always, will continue to be be on the production of high quality components in the shortest possible cycles and at the lowest cost per part.
These requirements will be met, for example, through multitasking (mainly milling and turning) in a single setup of Starrag machines, including Berthiez, Bumotec, Heckert and Starrag, as well as its TTL CAM / software operation.
The important thing, he concludes, is that the starting point for any Starrag solution is the component, not the machine. “We change machine configurations and processing concepts to determine the overall effect on cycle times; pushing everything to the maximum to develop a comprehensive solution that is specific to each detail, ”he adds.
We are not in the market to sell “standard” machines; we strive to continue to be a ‘champion of applications’, whether for specific parts that are required in small or large volumes. Our customers need to be competitive, and we need to stay focused on providing cost-effective and efficient solutions from time to time. ”
Mr Scott is adamant that Starrag’s “Engineering is exactly what it costs” strategy is comprehensive: “Components are becoming more complex and require more machining, so we work closely with customers to develop (and provide) special-purpose fasteners and tools, for example.
“Nowadays, you need the whole package – and this is a philosophy that will apply to the production requirements presented to our customers by the electric drive.”
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