Airborne launches Industrialisation Partner Model

This service guides the way for companies developing new products in composites or already making composite parts but want to industrialise, from early design concepts, material and process choices, cost evaluation and business case development, up to creating and implementing the right automation and digitalisation technologies.

With the strong push to sustainability and electrification, new composite platforms are being developed with the purpose to rapidly launch new products at an industrial scale. In other sectors, the value chain dynamics have changed significantly requiring drastic adaptation in cost reduction, scale-up or reduction of dependencies on manual labour. With this new model, Airborne is able to support clients at any and every point along the journey of industrialising composites, providing full control of the customer at every stage.

The Industrialisation Partner Model provides a structured approach in which during the early stages of product development, the fundamental questions are evaluated on product requirements, technical feasibility and full economic predictions of a product through its life. For the development of new composite products, Airborne offers design services, prototyping, trade-off studies, and design for automation. This way it is ensured that parts are optimised for future high rate manufacturing and are compatible with automation.

In next stages, for customers who wish to set-up industrialised manufacturing, Airborne offers automation and digitalisation system engineering considering different equipment and software options, business case analysis, and if appropriate, the supply of their existing suite of automation solutions or the creation of a bespoke, integrated manufacturing line using third party equipment. The current Airborne suite includes Automated Kitting, Automated Honeycomb Potting, Automated Laminating, Automated Preforming and a platform of digital solutions.

The Airborne automation and digitalisation solutions were created out of a fundamental understanding of all aspects of composites. Within the Airborne team structural engineers, materials experts, tooling, processing and manufacturing engineers continuously work on new building blocks within the Industrialisation Partner Model to serve clients with new features based on their needs. To lead this new model Airborne has appointed Joe Summers as commercial director.

www.airborne.com