Spirit AeroSystems has been awarded the 2021 Small Business Composite Manufacturing Excellence Award (Large Company) for its advanced composite wing spoiler program for the Airbus A320 family of aircraft.
The spoilers are manufactured at Spirit's Prestwick facility using Spirit's pioneering Resin Transfer Molding (RTM) technology. Leveraging its unmatched manufacturing design expertise, Spirit re-engineered the A320 spoilers into a fully integrated, out-of-autoclave, single-shot RTM solution. The new spoiler manufacturing system offers significant manufacturing and cost efficiencies, including reduced energy consumption and material waste, compared to the traditional hand layup, honeycomb core reinforcement, and autoclave cure process. The elimination of multiple autoclave cure cycles means fewer tooling is required for production, resulting in faster flow times and contributing to a more sustainable process.
Redesigning the product and production system in parallel allowed Spirit to evaluate alternative design architectures, material and process choices, tooling approaches, assembly solutions, and equipment configurations. The end result is a highly automated system optimized across quality, speed, and cost.
“We are pleased to have our excellence in composite manufacturing recognized by SME,” said Kevin Mathies, senior vice president and chief technology and quality officer at Spirit AeroSystems. “Spirit is constantly looking for opportunities to provide our customers with superior quality products at a competitive cost while driving sustainability through our manufacturing process. The key to our success with this particular challenge was the integration of new product design, new technology, factory layout and digital transformation into a single, fully optimized, clean production system. Spirit is proud to join the ranks of industry leaders who have previously received this award.”
The SME Awards, which are international in scope, celebrate the contributions of companies that have demonstrated excellence in the manufacturing of products using advanced composite materials. Such excellence may include the development of innovative tools or production process technologies for the manufacture of products that accelerate the growth of composites through superior service, quality or cost-saving initiatives.
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