41% Machining Cost Reduction for A350XWB Connectors

Mansfield, March 20, 2020 – Jaivel Aerospace has successfully completed a 24-month project to reduce cost of machining of A350XWB connectors.

In early 2018, a Germany based leading risk and revenue sharing partner to Airbus on the A350XWB program approached Jaivel Aerospace to explore possibilities to reduce manufacturing cost of 300+ highly complex machined connectors that are integral to aircrafts critical fuel system.

Working with the customer’s engineering and manufacturing team, Jaivel Aerospace engineers undertook a detailed study of the incumbent manufacturing process as well as the design of each feature within the product. Concluding the process diagnostics, the team presented opportunities to reduce cost by 27%. Apart from the process opportunities, the customer’s new investment in their Flexible Manufacturing System (FMS) was a key contributor in setting such an ambitious goal.

Applying Jaivel’s Intelligent Manufacturing framework to each of the identified improvement opportunities, the Jaivel team developed multiple options of work holding, CNC machining strategy and worked with the customer’s manufacturing team on the shop floor to prove the potential of each option. The result of this exercise was a robust engineering and program strategy,

Once engineering solutions were in place, Jaivel team designed new fixtures, re-generated every CNC Program and developed new standard operating procedures (SOPs). In parallel, each component was going through the machining prove-out process in Germany. Teams in England, India & Germany were seamlessly working together to implement the new manufacturing process at the rate of one part every day.

Finally, on 20th March 2020, we completed the project achieving 41% cost reduction and a truly delighted customer.