FROM BOTTLENECK TO BEST PRACTICE
Adaptive Technologies help aerospace manufacturer optimize avionics testing
FROM BOTTLENECK TO BEST PRACTICE
Adaptive Technologies help aerospace manufacturer optimize avionics testing
FROM BOTTLENECK TO BEST PRACTICE
Adaptive Technologies help aerospace manufacturer optimize avionics testing
Company
Our customer designs and manufactures systems that are found on nearly every commercial, defense and space aircraft. It produces aircraft engines, avionics, wireless connectivity, mechanical systems, power units and more. Its integrated hardware and software solutions help make air travel safer, more efficient, and more reliable, enabling fuel savings, on-time arrivals, and enhanced safety in the skies and at airports.
Situation
The company required custom test equipment and data acquisition systems for product testing. A significant challenge arose in their Highly Accelerated Stress Testing (HASS) process, which was a major bottleneck in their manufacturing. HASS is a mandatory test for 100% of avionics electronics, designed to push products past early manufacturing defects into a period of long, low-failure-rate life. Avionics are required to undergo HASS testing by companies like Airbus, Embraer, and Boeing.
The company’s existing HASS process presented several critical pain points:
- Each HASS test took approximately four hours to run.
- Test chambers could only accommodate two to four products at a time, leading to slow throughput.
- There was inconsistent testing within the chambers, with products near heater banks or liquid nitrogen nozzles experiencing disproportionate temperature exposure.
- The changeover time between tests was a substantial hour to an hour and a half, during which chamber doors were open, and products were manually disconnected and reconnected, resulting in significant chamber downtime.
Solution
The manufacturer partnered with Adaptive Innovations because of our knowledge of Highly Accelerated Life Testing (HALT) and HASS. We designed a new approach to HASS fixturing, specifically focused on rapid changeover, higher-density product loading within the chambers, a balanced test for all products, and extensive computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis on the fixturing to ensure consistent test excitation for every product.
Results
Our innovative HASS fixturing delivered substantial improvements:
- Product capacity in a single chamber increased from 4 to 16 products, a fourfold improvement.
- Changeover time dropped drastically from 1.5 hours to under 10 minutes for all 16 products, significantly improving chamber uptime.
Adaptive Innovations became the manufacturer’s go-to HASS fixturing supplier and built a large number of HASS fixtures for this manufacturer. Our unique knowledge and design in HASS fixturing were instrumental in our selection during the customer’s supplier-rationalization event, where the approved vendor list was reduced from over 300-400 to just 40. Adaptive Innovations made the cut and was designated a preferred vendor.