While obsolescence is an unavoidable by-product of technological progress, for highly regulated industries, such as aerospace, it can pose a serious problem, due to compliance issues that make it hard to source alternative components. However, with rapid developments now taking place in additive manufacturing (AM), might 3D printed components be a way forward?
“With the growing demand for lightweight parts for aircraft engines, 3D printing provides many benefits for the aerospace industry, such as the possibility to print in a wide variety of metal powders to create hollow and complex designs,” says Neil Ballinger, head of EMEA at EU Automation. “Thanks to these innovations, AM is transforming aerospace manufacturing by reducing weight and removing design constraints, therefore cutting costs, carbon emissions and development times. Given these benefits, many are wondering if it could also provide a solution to obsolescence.”
Stakeholders who operate in highly regulated sectors, where upgrading to newer components means realms of paperwork and red tape, have been especially keen to explore this possibility. “For example, several national authorities, including the US and Swiss governments, have already established research programmes to investigate the potential of AM to tackle obsolescence in defence,” he points out. “Though the results are promising, there are still serious technical and bureaucratic challenges.”
The majority of parts in the aerospace industry have decades-long life cycles. “However, internal components used in those systems, such as semiconductors and electronic boards, have much shorter life cycles,” he states. “For these parts, aerospace manufacturers can run into difficulties sourcing, especially with increased demand amongst a supply shortage.”
NOT SO FAST
Implementing AM could help, Ballinger agrees, but 3D printing parts using designs from the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) raises copyright concerns. “Copyright and intellectual property claims could prevent the aerospace industry from progressing with AM use for obsolescence. However, new legislations rolling out in the EU and the US could soon address this issue, as these countries push to become more repair-minded.”
Another challenge the industry will face is whether AM components might be deemed safe for aerospace and defence purposes. Due to standards and regulations, these components would need to go through strict testing protocols and certifications to ensure component safety, repeatability and consistency. “There is some progress in this sense, such as manufacturing execution system (MES) software for AM that enables aerospace manufacturers to increase compliance with regulations like AS9100 [the international Quality Management System standard for the Aviation, Space and Defense (AS&D) industry],” adds Ballinger. “However, there are still many obstacles to overcome before AM can successfully manage obsolescence, which makes this approach inconvenient for the time being.
“This is why aerospace manufacturers might want to go the traditional way for now, implementing a good obsolescence management plan and connecting with specialised parts suppliers like EU Automation to help source obsolete parts.”
Roger Payne, divisional manager, and Wayne Turtill, product manager, at Mitsubishi Electric - Automation Systems Division UK, have strong views on the matter of obsolescence. Payne highlights how products now not only seemingly last ‘forever’, but also how Mitsubishi Electric takes it upon itself to make sure its next-generation products are backwards compatible.
BENEFITS
“The benefits are felt by the end users and the system integrators alike, as reliability becomes paramount when you can also deliver technical innovation, ease of use and integration into legacy systems,” he says. “We enjoy a very loyal customer base, especially from those of us who can remember the 1980s – it’s a good job that we focus on innovation, too, so the younger generations of customers and engineers also have a strong reason to use our products to create new solutions, with the confidence we will be giving the same support in years to come.”
Many aspects of what was once rightly regarded as science fiction are now a reality, he adds. “Mitsubishi Electric’s own brand of artificial intelligence, Maisart, is a good example. It features on the latest FR-E800 series variable speed drives, enabling individual units to provide operational and maintenance teams with real-time predictive maintenance advice on themselves.”
Turtill says Mitsubishi Electric recognised early on what makes a good drive and holding to those tenets. He continues: “If you take a ‘digital inverter’ from 1987, the first ten parameters are the same now as they were then. A lot of companies force product obsolesce by purposefully changing formats and software platforms, particularly in consumer devices.
“But as Roger [Payne] points out, businesses that invest in long-term assets and backwards compatibility in an industrial B2B context are extremely important, which is why this approach is one of our company’s guiding principles. Factories don’t often get built from a clean sheet of paper, so it is more common for us to help provide evolution in machine design and upgrade paths for production lines and process facilities.”
Payne points to how networking and communication are constantly evolving, which is why investment has gone into time-sensitive networking, edge computing and AI. “When our devices communicate across large facilities in near real-time, and a 30-year-old press machine with its tooling can also be integrated with a new line of robots that no longer require physical safety barriers, then it’s clear that flexible solutions are being delivered to the end user. Add in big data being handled efficiently to optimise production, which is being coordinated by PLCs where demand is driven directly from online orders, then we know we are also servicing future requirements now”.
BOX: SOUNDING THE ALARM ON OBSOLESCENCE
The impact that the inability to source certain essential replacement components can have is all too clearly brought home by the recent announcement from Eaton that one of its fire alarm sounders is being temporarily shelved ‘due to a component obsolescence.’
The company’s Fulleon Symphoni is described as a highly adaptable conventional fire alarm sounder with piezoelectric electric charge technology, said to deliver a current consumption as low as 5mA, and hence widely used by OEM platforms and global manufacturers.
The reality is that, wherever obsolescence is encountered, the loss of a single part can bring the whole component – and even a production line – grinding to a halt, even if only temporarily.
