08 - Manufacturing and Supply Chain Management
GAP OPTIMIZATION ADAPTIVE TOOL FOR LARGE SCALE FLEXIBLE STRUCTURE ASSEMBLY
M. Tatar¹, L. Branko¹, R.W. Grube¹, R. Noll¹, G.M. Buckus¹, O. Wagner¹; ¹Boeing, United States
Assembly of large-scale flexible structures—such as commercial airplane fuselages and Space Launch System cryogenic tanks—poses a persistent challenge for assembly due to tight allocated engineering requirements for the large complex components/assemblies. These structures exhibit significant transformations during handling, assembly operations, deformations due to inherent flexibility, thermal exposure, cumulative tolerance stack-ups, different fixtures, etc. The ability to control, manipulate and verify shape during assembly is therefore fundamental to enabling stable, repeatable, and high-rate production systems that deliver consistent quality.