Aero Engine Corporation of China enhances manufacturing process to propel ahead of the competition

Challenge

Aero-engine components are often seen as the “heart” of a nation’s competitiveness in the aviation industry. As AECC plans to grow this business segment and to compete with the increasing competition, it needed to enhance its production efficiency to keep up with customer demands.

Although they had previously invested in advanced machinery and equipment, they wanted a business partner who has a proven track record on manufacturing process optimization and system integration to help the company to upgrade and further enhance its operations and productivity.

Approach

As part of our comprehensive process transformation plan to enhance AECC’s manufacturing process, we introduced a compound machining center for the turning and milling processes.

This also incorporated an automated loading and unloading system to replace the previous manual loading process.

The automated machining tools also provide online testing and marking without any manual intervention involved.

Result

Using DKSH’s newly deployed automated machining process, the production line has become more efficient and reliable. The optimized workflow significantly reduced production time. For instance, a spare part like a shaft that previously required 16 operational steps over 19 days to produce ten different parts is now produced by only two machines within a single day.

Also, the newly installed software system tracks the entire production unit’s process flow. All production data is now recorded, entered, marked and displayed onto a monitor screen to allow quick problem shooting and fast solutions to be applied.