Carbures develops a 4.0 robotic automation system for Airbus Defence in Seville

• Carbures carries out a technological development of its own to Airbus to automate a manual process of 'shaving' of rivets for the plant of the global aeronautical manufacturer in Seville. This 'intelligent' robot of industry 4.0 allows to reduce the operation times and ensure the repetitiveness of the process.

• The contract, which lasts approximately ten months, will allow the implementation of this new technology at the Airbus plant in Tablada, which the Company can now apply to the other two sectors in which it operates: automotive and civil works.

Madrid, May 4th 2018. Carbures contributes its 4.0 technology to the improvement of assembly processes for Airbus aircraft parts in one of the two most important aeronautical poles in Spain, the Sevillian. The company specializing in engineering and industrial technology for the manufacture of structures and parts in composite materials has signed a new contract with Airbus, which will provide it with its own technology to speed up the industrial process of manufacturing aircraft structures in the plant that Airbus operates in Tablada, Seville. The contract has a duration of 10 months and it will be developed, installed and put into operation by a team of engineers that Carbures has in Seville.

This new contract reinforces Carbures as a reference supplier for Airbus in composite materials and process engineering for the manufacture of aircraft structures. Carbures distinguishes itself from its competitors by its own technological developments and the ability to provide industrial and engineering solutions in the aerospace industry. This know-how is what the major manufacturers of the sector value and thus Carbures has achieved this new contract, by which Airbus will replace a manual process, the shaving of rivets, by a robotic process, improving manufacturing times by increasing the speed of the industrial process and the quality of this. The process itself consists of automation with intelligent robots equipped with artificial vision of the polishing method of the rivets that join the structural parts of the aircraft. Currently, it is carried out by means of a manual milling operation and what Carbures has achieved is to replace it with a robotic and automatic process.

The Airbus Tablada plant is a PreFAL that takes out sets for delivery to different Final Assembly Line (FALs), which are final assembly lines. Among these assemblies are: the fuselage of the C295, the horizontal stabilizer (HTP) of the A400M, the caps and pylons for the engines of the A400M, the pole of the MRTT, components of the wing of the Eurofighter, Fan cowls of the A380, rudders of the Boeing 777 , flaps and ailerons of the Boeing 737.
The innovative technological components that are going to be integrated in this robotic station are the following:

• Creation of a flexible automated solution, able to adapt with minimum costs to different products and configurations
• Creation of a Human-Machine Interface (HMI) capable of agilely configuring the process according to specific production needs
• System adapted to industry 4.0, with real-time communication capability with plant systems
• Robot integration of standard final tools, reducing stock costs and repair and replacement times
• Vision system for self-verification
• Intelligent work strategy, adapting dynamically to the differences between real and theoretical product
All these elements are part of Industry 4.0, and that with the integration of specific technologies is generating intelligent and hyperconnected factories. The objective is the reduction of times, the increase of efficiency, and a greater security in the processes of production in the plants. Carbures, which is characterized by its own know-how and technological developments, applies this industry 4.0 and collaborative robotics in the areas of Mobility and Aerospace & Defense.

"Our added value is what our customers value"
Rafael Contreras, President of Carbures, states: "Carbures is born from the knowledge of composite materials, comes from the University, from the Faculty of Chemistry, that allows us to develop our own technology that distinguishes us from the competition, gives us an added value, which is precisely what our customers value ". Contreras adds: "this new contract is a good proof of that. Although we are still a growing company, we have been working for years on industrial processes and technologies in composites and the result is that today we have the capacity to provide pioneering and unique industrial solutions in the sector ".

Javier Moreno, General Manager of the Aerospace & Defense division, adds: "Contracts like this demonstrate the confidence of a customer like Airbus, whose technological and excellence level allows us to value our commitment to the client and our strengths: quality, technology, and knowledge. The fact that Airbus relies on Carbures for the development of the automation and robotization of some of its processes is a satisfaction for the recognition that this implies in terms of the technical capacity and experience of the Company in this type of process ".

The shaving robot has been developed within the framework of the MINERVA project (Manufacturing Industrial means Emerging from Validated Automation), with registration number 15/785, which has had an incentive granted by CTA, entirely subsidized by the Ministry of Economy and Knowledge of the Junta de Andalucía and the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness