India’s First Unique, Indigenous MCW Shop Inaugurated

[sudhir007]

Hindustan Aeronautics Limited

Mr. Jitendra Singh, Minister of State for Defence, inaugurated the state-of-the-art Manned Chamber Welding (MCW) shop, the only of its kind in the country and second in the world at HAL’s Koraput (Sunabeda) facilities in Odisha yesterday in presence of Mr. R.K. Mathur, Secretary Defence Production. "India and Russia are the only two countries having this facility", said Dr. R. K. Tyagi, Chairman, HAL.

The minister lauded HAL’s efforts. The Indian equipment has been developed indigenously by HAL with help of other vendors. Dr. Tyagi handed over a symbol of robotic argon chamber dedicated to the nation to the Minister.

Robotic tungsten inert gas (TIG) welding system in argon chamber plays an important role in welding of complicated assemblies for aero engine in total argon environment that ensures quality and reliability. The Indian MCW system at HAL is unique as it offers both robotic and human (manual) welding in argon atmosphere while the Russian welding is carried out only manually. In this robotic system, HAL does welding of 17 major modules of Sukhoi engine. The welding is of high quality and free of defects. The entire outer casing module of the engine is welded inside this chamber. The welder working inside has all life support and health monitoring features.

Air Marshal, S. Sukumar, DCAS, IAF, Mr. S. Subrahmanyan, HAL’s MD (MiG Complex), Mr. Aniruddh Kumar, HAL Executive Director (Koraput Division), top MoD and HAL officials were present on the occasion

 

[Dillinger]

This is exactly the kind of engineering we need. Manufacturing capability is earned primarily through being able to first design and manufacture assembly lines, tooling and jigs. By being able to produce fabrication machines and through rapid integration of mechanization in the production process along with intelligent human direction and participation. The effect is synergistic in nature.

I am still awed by the robotic ITO coating machines for canopy coating and RCS reduction that we built for the Tejas. Incremental and substantial leaps in such capabilities will re-invigorate our defense and manufacturing sector. Not to mention that the production of such machines is huge industry in itself.

The benefits will leak into various sectors. Our Achilles heel has been that our engineers and technicians have always shied away from the basic involvement in such grass root processes, instead jumping up to design end products instead of first mastering the processes required to build solid production bases. This is the singular front we must conquer at all costs.
@S-DUCT, @sancho @arp2041 @Abingdonboy @Joe Shearer comments...additions to other such feats we've managed?

S-DUCT Got the confirmation on the engine testing center we were setting up, whats the update now?

Can we have a unified thread for the industrial capacity we already have, are building AND need to acquire?

 

[acetophenol]

Yeah!

 

[PANTHERA TIGRIS]

i guess there was already a vaccum welding robotic chamber in some pvt company , ?in bangalore? for radar design !

 

[S-DUCT]

Good news.Adequate Industrial base and test facility should be created before the project is sanctioned.It often gives bad image to the time taken to complete the project. We have invested heavily to get the technology but we have not invested in nurturing young minds who can create the technology.

@Dillinger PSG did'nt had any updates on HTETF which is being built by boeing.

 

[indian_foxhound]

goood happy to see this....

 

[AUTOBOTS]

HAL is doing good jobs

 

[anant_s]

Metals like Titanium, Zirconium are required to be welded either in vacuum or in complete oxygen purged environment to get proper welds using GTAW (Gas tungsten arc welding) method. These chambers are simply airtight compartments with either full vacuum or inert gas (usually Argon or argon+helium mixture).
However to weld items of size used in fighter jets, the size of chamber increases and the design of such a chamber itself is a big achievement.

 

[Dillinger]

Good news.Adequate Industrial base and test facility should be created before the project is sanctioned.It often gives bad image to the time taken to complete the project. We have invested heavily to get the technology but we have not invested in nurturing young minds who can create the technology.

@Dillinger PSG did'nt had any updates on HTETF which is being built by boeing.

But the facility itself is confirmed yes?

 

[S-DUCT]

But the facility itself is confirmed yes?

Yeah it's confirmed.
@Anymember Do we have facilties to manufacture GaN modules.?

 

[Dillinger]

@sandy_3126 Sir, what are the machines and tools required for manufacturing aircraft parts and air-frame? As in which exact tools do we have, what do they do, which ones have we made ourselves and which ones have we bought from other sources? I know its a poorly worded question but I am really out of my depth here.

Could you amplify upon the design and production process involved in aircraft manufacturing, exactly in which areas are we lacking?
A detailed reply, albeit it will eat up your valuable time, would be much appreciated.

 

[MilSpec]

@sandy_3126 Sir, what are the machines and tools required for manufacturing aircraft parts and air-frame? As in which exact tools do we have, what do they do, which ones have we made ourselves and which ones have we bought from other sources? I know its a poorly worded question but I am really out of my depth here.

Could you amplify upon the design and production process involved in aircraft manufacturing, exactly in which areas are we lacking?
A detailed reply, albeit it will eat up your valuable time, would be much appreciated.

Dear, leave the sir aside, sandy is just fine!

I will try my best to explain my point of view about HAL which also reflects on OFB/BDL/BHEL/BEML/


Machine tools required in manufacturing aircraft parts and airframe:

almost 100,000 components may go into assembly of an aircraft depending on the type , Hence I dont think I will be able to mention the process for most of them. I am aware of only a few, I would have to be a some ort of operation manager with 20 yrs exp to know most of them, which I am not.

Key infrastructure that I would mention is forming (conventional and explosive), Drop forging, Die and mold machining, stamping, orbital riveting, precision machining, deep drawing, Tig/Mig/gas/spot welding/micro welding, brazing, Cfrc and gfrc composites, injection molding, Plating and Heat treatment, grinding, burnishing, polishing are a few of the processes that comes to my mind.

Infrastructure: We have all the machine tools needed to carry out the production processes needed to manufacture any kind of aircraft. BUT I am not sure if we have the best setup for doing all of it optimally. Example a robotic handler bed attachment for a 5 axis CNC mill can be used to machine say a stamping that reinforces the spar to air frame joint. By this setup the entire stamping can be machined in 2.1 hrs. Same is process can also be achieved by a conventional fixture layout and a semi manual handling system, the difference is the time it takes to finish the job is 6.3 hrs. Now when you stack up these small inadequacies for 5000 components, and thier work flow bottlenecks , you can see the lost time stack up pretty quickly.

Qualilty: With composites and newer alloys making it's way into aircrafts, the ability to control the desired profile tolerances can be very expensive especially for a firm which relies on ToT, In lot of cases the infrastructure is adapted to accomodate new process, which ideally should be the other way around. This leads to rejected parts and extreme losses in form of cost of quality. HAL faces a lot of that hence the expenses add up heavily.

Takt: Takt time is the ratio of the customer demand to the available time for your production line. Takt is sometimes a good measure to understand the health of your production line, if the workflow is properly designed and there is MDI's put together for resolving the key issues on the pareto of misses for the takt, your lines will function properly. Our Mil industry is severely lacking when it comes to Lean manufacturing function like these.

Work force issues: The organisational structure of especially HAL is stuck in the 60's where the manager commands a few engineers and engineers tell the technicians what to do. There is not enough employee engagement, technicians and engineers do not pull their own weight, independent decisions making is not appreciated or recognized, talent is not promoted. New management principles on work cell levels are not appreciated either by the managers nor by the technicians. HAL when was made into a PSU worked on the socialist lines of providing employment source to develop the workforce. Today if HAL is privatized, and is audited by any firm, the first decision for any new management will be the glaring issue of extra workforce, Half of the HAL workforce will face job cuts. HAL is over employed by a severely huge margin.

There aren't just technical or just management issues that plagues defence PSU's, these issues combine together and form an excruciating problem for achieving goals that can make these D-Psu's world class. All of the issues are solvable but there is not enough push, not enough will to do so.