Building AFP System to Yield Extreme Availability

Typical Automated Fiber Placement equipment yields low utilization. Many systems are in the 25% range. This is caused by a number of factors, some land squarely in the OEMs lap. Aircraft manufacturers are putting pressure on the OEMs to deliver systems that will yield much more utilization. The big slices of pie that impact availability are Inspection Times, Reliability of Process & Quality of Layup, and lack of visibility for management. Electroimpact (EI) has dedicated the past 2 years to improve these areas and we are about to see the results of these efforts at 777x spars. Today’s presentation will highlight our efforts to increase utilization by a large multiplier (2+). 

Primary Topics: 
- Where does the time go? 
- If the aircraft manufacturer changes nothing, what could the utilization be? 
- What can EI do to improve the situation? 
- How does EI help the manufacturer clean up their operation? 

Presenter: Todd Rudberg 
Todd began his working career at Electroimpact in January of 1994 immediately after completing his BS in Physics from the University of Washington. Initially Todd served as an Electrical Engineer, then controls engineer in the riveting and fastening division at Electroimpact. In 2004, Boeing decided to build the 787 and Electroimpact was given an RFI. Todd knew that composites was the future and AFP was what he wanted to do. Todd wrote the original CNC controls that brought EI’s vision to life. After 14 years of really hard work, Todd became a leader in the company and is currently leading the AFP charge for EI. Besides dominating the AFP world, Todd loves to race. Todd currently actively races dirtbikes, airplanes and mountain bikes. Whether for a work application or for a racing endeavor, economy of motion and effort are constantly on Todd’s mind.