02 - Systems Engineering and Integration
ENABLING HIGH RATE COMPOSITE MANUFACTURING THROUGH A ROBUST MANUFACTURING DIGITAL ECOSYSTEM
M. Rabiega¹, C. Reynolds¹; ¹The Boeing Company, United States
The drive to deliver first-time quality at high throughput for composite structures demands more than faster tools
and automation; it requires a robust manufacturing digital ecosystem that delivers high-rate data acquisition,
meaningful contextualization, and interoperable consumption of that information across the product value stream.
In this paper we describe an approach and lessons learned from demonstrating a digital ecosystem in the
Composite Wing Center (CWC) that enables process control and measurement of key characteristics at
production rates.
Key elements of the ecosystem include:
• an as-built product digital twin that captures key characteristics to demonstrate conformance to
requirements;
• a hub-and-spoke manufacturing digital infrastructure that places streaming equipment data into the
context of the part and the production flow; and
• open, standards forward data models to overcome the heterogeneity of shopfloor sources.
Contextualized AFP cell data can be reused at multiple points in the product value stream: by design validation,
NC programming, manufacturing and process (M&P) engineering, quality, and assembly. We also discuss efforts
to translate shop-floor learnings into standards work (including extensions to ISO 10303 information models) and
practical strategies for data acquisition and part-centric contextualization. The demonstrated capability on 777X
illustrates that standards and a disciplined digital ecosystem are central enablers for achieving first-time quality
at rate for next-generation composite manufacturing..