Electroimpact has been nominated as a finalist for the 2020 JEC Innovation Awards for the Scalable Composite Robotic Additive Manufacturing (SCRAM) carbon fiber 3D printing system.

SCRAM is an industrial true 6-axis continuous fiber reinforced thermoplastic 3D printing system, enabling the tool-less rapid creation of aerospace grade integrated composite structures.

Key benefit

• Additively manufactured highly reinforced continuous fiber composite parts
• True 6 axis fiber reinforcement tailoring to the load path
• Dramatic reduction in composite part lead time
• Able to create highly integrated, complex, multi-material composite structures
• Innovative composite designs that may not be producible by other methods

See the JEC press release here:

“Engineers at Electroimpact in Mukilteo, Washington make a career-long pledge to support their customers from design-to-production and beyond”

Boeing was warned years ago that its plan to use robots inside and outside the body of fuselages wouldn't work to assemble sections of the 777X and 777, a Seattle aerospace executive says.

A Bloomberg News report this week revealed that jet maker is eliminating the use of riveting robots made by Kuka Systems. Instead, Boeing mechanics will insert fasteners into holes drilled along the circumference of fuselages used to build the 777 and 777X jets in Everett.

After enduring a manufacturing mess that spanned six years and cost millions of dollars as it implemented a large-scale robotic system for automated assembly of the 777 fuselage, Boeing has abandoned the robots and will go back to relying more on its human machinists.

Boeing said Wednesday it is adopting a different approach that “has proven more reliable, requiring less work by hand and less rework, than what the robots were capable of.”

Score one for the humans. After four years of trial and error, Boeing Co. is dumping one of its most ambitious forays into automation: the robots that build two main fuselage sections for its 777 jetliners and an upgraded version known as the 777X.

Instead, the Chicago-based planemaker will rely on skilled mechanics to manually insert fasteners into holes drilled along the circumference of the airplane by an automated system known as “flex tracks,” which it has honed over years of use on the 787 Dreamliner.