Singapore Aero Engine Services Works with ABB to Reduce the Engine Turn-time

​Client Profile: Singapore Aero Engine Services Private Limited (SAESL) is a Trent Center of Excellence specializing in the repair and overhaul of the successful Rolls-Royce Trent aero engine family. The company first started operations in 2001 and has since overhauled more than 2,000 engines that are spread across 15 customers and three continents. Through its parent companies, SAESL combines the knowledge of Rolls-Royce, an original equipment manufacturer, with 20 years of overhaul experience of Hong-Kong Aero Engine Services Limited and Singapore Airlines Engineering Company.

Business Need: SAEAL was looking at achieving the overhaul of the Rolls-Royce Trent 500 engine 18 months ahead of schedule. The company realized the importance of reducing the time taken to fully overhaul and process an engine, by less than 60 days and deliver shorter engine turn-times as opposed to the industry benchmark of 65 days. It needed six stages of compressor blades that needed to be commissioned. The tuning of the blade would also need configuration of over 200 robotic positions at each stage. Totally there were more than a thousand robotic positions that needed to be configured. Apart from this, the company faced another challenge where the gripper needed to be customized. This was required to grip the compressor blades. It was designed to cater to multiple stages of blades as it could not be designed specifically for a single stage. They had to make sure that they were adaptive enough to grip the blades in multiple stages.

Solution Implementation: ABB provided the company with state-of-the-art robotics. The solution involved the deployment of carefully selected robots. The irb 2400L is used for material handling, picking and placing of compressor blades around different stations for welding and grinding of blade tips, including the irb 140 that is used for blade tips lubrication material coating. The irb 2400L was chosen for the picking and placing of the compressor blade to and from the shot peening machine. The shot peening process was considered the most effective way to enhance the components that are subject to extreme stress. irb 1400 was chosen for machine tending and to pick and place compressor blades to and from CMM for dimension inspection, while the irb 2400 was used for plasma coating and spraying of metal powder onto the engine components of the build-up materials.

Benefits: The solution reduced the man-hours by 10 percent and this helped in lowering the cost of the operations. This also enhanced the productivity, but lowered the cycle downtime. The solution also enabled a shorter engine turn-time of under 60 days, which the company was looking for. It also enhanced the safety of the workers and lowered the risks with the movement of materials in the workflow processes. It also lowered cycle time for repairing compressor blades from 21 to 17 days.

Source Case Study

Keywords: ABB, Singapore Aero Engine Services Private Limited, Automation, ARC Advisory Group