The Floor Drilling Gantry System (FDGS) was originally designed, and built as
a system to replace existing Automated Floor Drilling Equipment (AFDE)
for the Boeing 747 aircraft. This new system incorporates features of
a moving line process flow by combining the floor build verification,
alignment, drilling, fitting installation, deburr, and work hardening
processes into one line.
This new process of floor drilling eliminate the need for five (5)
AFDE machines that were used to drill floor grids inside the fuselage. Replacing
the five outdated machines with the single FDGS
results in an obvious cost savings. The system also improves
machine utilization by removing the need for multiple machines positioned
at several dedicated locations depending on the floor section being
drilled.
The system is able to move the drilling process out of the fuselage which
results in a flow time reduction and elimination of the need to clean
chips from inside the fuselage structure. The need for manual labor to
locate and drill fittings is eliminated as this is all done by the
automated probe routine and drilling system.