aerospace

ECOSPEED goes Japan

Four times faster than the competition – Boeing supplier orders the first ECOSPEED machining centre in Japan - Around a third of all ECOSPEED machining centres produced to date have been destined for Asia. This success story is now starting a brand new chapter:The first Starrag Group ECOSPEED destined for Japan has been bought by a major Japanese manufacturer of aircraft components.

“I am 100% certain there is no machine tool out there that can compete with the performance of an ECOSPEED”, says Alfred Lilla, Head of Sales of the Aerostructure market segment at Starrag Group. A few years ago at his first ECOSPEED seminar in China, Lilla carried out an experiment that shocked the representatives of all the renowned aviation companies. An ECOSPEED machining centre milled an Airbus frame to the highest level of precision in about 95 minutes. The Chinese hosts would normally do this in around nine hours.

Since then, the Scharmann ECOSPEED series has dominated the Asian aviation industry with its high-performance machines: Regular customers include Korea Aerospace Industries Ltd. (KAI) from Sacheon City (South Korea). Since 2009, Korea’s sole aircraft manufacturer has placed 12 orders for ECOSPEED machining centres, designed for high-speed machining of large aluminium structural components. KAI has recently extended its contract to include a further two ECOSPEED F models, intended to complete one of the world’s largest manufacturing lines in 2016; the line will eventually encompass nine machines, three fitting stations, two transport carts and a total of 60 pallets. Lilla: “This regular customer also has three ECOSPEED machining centres to produce 20-metre long wing panels”.

Up to 75% shorter machining times are achieved

Thanks mainly to their Sprint Z3 parallel kinematic machining head, the machines of this series have proven themselves in the highly dynamic, simultaneous five-axis milling of challenging, aluminium large-scale components. KAI uses this technology for a number of applications, including machining the highly complex supporting structural parts of the Airbus A 350 XWB.

So far, a total of 35 ECOSPEED orders have come from South Korea and China. But the icing on the cake of this success story is order number 36: The first order from Japan, received by Starrag in the summer of 2014 based on the references from Asia and after a very convincing testing process by a Japanese Boeing supplier. “The ECOSPEED machined a mid-sized structural aircraft part for Boeing four times faster than any of its competitors”, reports the Head of Sales Aerostructure. The well-known aerospace company will commission an ECOSPEED F 2040 in 2016, first using the high-performance machine to make structural components. The company will then almost certainly go on to place orders for further machining centres.

The Sales Manager is confident that he and his team will enhance the Japanese aviation industry with this order and excellent on-site service. To be able to serve Asian customers to particularly high standards, Starrag has built up a consignment stock for the rapid supply of spare parts in Seoul and Shanghai. Lilla: “Besides the technology, this is one of the reasons why we have had such success in Asia. The performance and robust technology of the ECOSPEED series speak for themselves – no responsible manager can ignore that”.

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