High Efficient Composite Stringer Forming Machine for Energy Saving

This paper proposes the solution to reduce the energy consumption of forming machine for the composite stringer manufacturing by applying the lean manufacturing techniques. The lean techniques such as standard operating procedures, single minute exchange of dies, external set-up based on production efficiency improvement are used to optimize the stringer manufacturing process. The improved set-up is performed during machine operation to reduce cycle time thus, enable continuous production of various stringers. As a result, the cycle time of development machine having the process improvement effects is reduced by 84.8%. In order to achieve this, the development machine is consisted of two lower stations, upper chamber, auto side indexes and quick centering devices. The work process is simplified by applying automatic machine instead of conventional machine. As well as the improved method produced two composite stringer in one cycle, it could reduce the machine energy consumption and increase the productivity.