Flexcelle will re-imagine the assembly of nacelle products by utilising reconfigurable assembly tooling to minimise the reliance on bespoke assembly tooling.  This will reduce programme costs, reduce development and manufacturing lead-times, increase productivity and enable an agile response to product variation or demand.

UoN Objectives

Design, mature and demonstrate the following:

• a manufacturing cell to facilitate the assembly of the full spectrum of products within Safran Nacelles’ portfolio
• a tooling system capable of reconfiguring to accommodate the range of products delivered by Safran Nacelles
• an automated system capable of accurately locating one component relative to another without the need for bespoke, hard tooling
• the automated inspection of product characteristics
• integration of digital manufacturing technologies with Safran Nacelles’ production processes.

Industrial Application

A generic, reconfigurable assembly system will help Safran capture market share from competitors by reducing the cost and development cycle time required to deliver nacelle products to new aircraft.