Being locked in a 500,000lb aluminum drum as it hurtles through the air at 80% the speed of sound — and paying for the privilege. Not that we want to give you a complex, but when you really stop and think about it, the very concept of flying is just as daunting as it is incredible.
Promising to deliver us to — almost — anywhere in the world, the industry is booming and record numbers of people are packing their bags and taking more and more flights each year. To put things into perspective, in 2018 there are expected to be more than 4 billion aircraft passengers — almost double the figure compared with 2008. And our flying fixation shows no sign of slowing.
Rob Stiefel, Account Manager in the Aerospace Vertical market at Siemens, USA, cites many reasons for this. “Aerospace is experiencing amazing growth right now and is poised to continue to grow for the foreseeable future,” he says. “Given all the developing nations looking to get new aircraft and more people wanting to travel for business and leisure, passenger miles are growing at an astronomical rate.” An emerging middle classes — especially in Asia — is also a reason for soaring ticket sales, as more people are able to afford holidays than ever before.
People need more planes
This desire to collect more passport stamps than we did in the past has enabled global commercial airlines to line their pockets — and in no small way. Profits have soared, growing from $3.3 billion in 2004 to an incredible $58.6 billion in 2016. Now, more than ever, the industry has the money to invest in the new planes that are needed to ensure our growing appetite for travel can be sated.
There’s one problem — and it’s a big one. The planes just can’t be built quickly enough.
Last year marked a record for aircraft manufacture, with a total of 1,740 planes built across the globe. But while it shows that things are going in the right direction, it’s still nowhere near the number required.
“A lot of planes have been out there for decades, and those planes are starting to be retired, with airlines busy replacing their fleets,” says Rob.
But it’s not like you can just press a button (yet) and a plane can be built. They are highly complex and require a considerable amount of manpower to produce. A modern jet engine is assembled from more than 20,000 parts, meaning the process for building each plane is highly complex and extremely time-consuming.
This slow production process means there’s now an unprecedented backlog when it comes to delivering commercial aircraft, and promises made by manufacturers are taking years to fulfil. Take specialist plane builders Airbus, for example. They delivered 718 planes in 2017, but still have a backlog of 7,265 planes. Boeing is in a similar situation. Expressed as the number of years of production, the global order backlog increased from nine years at the end of 2016 to 9.8 years at the end of 2017 — a record high for the jet era. Unless something is done to significantly speed up the production process, this backlog will continue to grow.
Cars might hold the answer
“In terms of automating their processes, the aviation industry is very archaic compared to the automotive industry,” says Rob. “You walk into an automotive powertrain facility and basically a human hand isn’t even touching the engine. There are robots everywhere and it’s very impressive.”
For such a future-facing space, many aspects of the aviation industry still follow old-fashioned and outdated practices. Of course, producing a plane is significantly more complicated than producing a car, and there have been some improvements over the years, but the industry as a whole has been slow to adopt automation and digitalization, which could ultimately speed up the production process.
“One of the challenges is the old-school mentality of the aviation industry that they don’t need to be automated,” says Rob. “They have been doing things this way for so long and, in the past, haven’t really been forced to automate. However, with this unprecedented backlog, that will surely change and they will need to automate and digitalize in order to be successful.”
Part of his job is to work with aircraft manufacturers, helping them to understand it’s something they need to address in order to boost productivity and future-proof their businesses.
“It’s starting to change,” he says, “but it’s like steering a big cruise liner, which takes a long time to change direction.” Many aircraft manufacturers are even beginning to bring in automotive industry executives who can help change the mindset and implement the necessary changes within aviation.
“They need to get rid of all the paper on the shop floor and just get a better control of their systems and processes,” he says. “I think they understand that they have to digitalize or they are not going to be successful. The next five to 10 years will definitely be a revolutionary time in the industry.”
Future-proofing plane production
Drawing on lessons from the automotive industry, Rob hopes to change the path of aircraft manufacture forever. Along with a team of experts, he’s providing the tools that will allow the entire production of a jet engine to be automated.
“We’re the only company that has products for the entire process chain,” he says. “We have the software to help design the jet engine, we have the software to send that design down to the shop floor, and then we have the controls and automation to actually manufacture the products as well. And now with MindSphere, Siemens has the ability to provide detailed data analytics for manufacturing processes, which in the future could be used in the service of engines and aircrafts.”
MindSphere is a cloud-based, open Internet of Things (IoT) operating system from Siemens that connects your products, plants, systems, and machines, enabling you to harness the wealth of data generated by the IoT with advanced analytics. With this technology jet engine manufacturers would have all the tools in place to entirely automate their own facilities, in turn speeding up production and enabling more planes to be built, more quickly. Projects like this will go a long way to eradicating the global plane backlog.
Rob sees his work as a logical next step for the future of transport — creating more planes will open up the world to more people. “I love to travel but when my parents were my age, flying wasn’t really accessible to them,” he says. “They went down to New Jersey on their honeymoon, which is one state away, and here I am at 30 years old and I flew completely across the world to Africa for my honeymoon on a direct flight.”
Things have changed so much in the past 30 years, and now with the help of the latest technologies, just think what can and will be achieved in another 30 years.
Rob Stiefel is responsible for maintaining the relationship between Siemens and key end user aerospace customers. His focus is to drive Siemens specifications across multiple business units. He joined the company in 2011 and lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Find out more about working at Siemens.
