Boeing Commercial Airplane Group

Boeing Plans to Use Parametric Tool Design for 777

Seattle, Washington.

Analysts at Boeing Commercial Airplane Group (BCAG) recently completed a "Joggle Die Parametric Design" project to improve tool design and increase drafting productivity almost tenfold. According to Mr. Mike Tiegs, Manufacturing Engineer and Systems Analyst, of BCAG, the typical joggle die designs and manual drafting had been taking 20-30 hours to complete each project. However, by automating both design and drafting, the same project can be completed in just 2-3 hours.

"SYNTHESIS can generate a CAD production drawing file in about 5-8 minutes, including the title block and Bill of Materials, with an IBM PS2 computer," Mr. Tiegs said.

"SYNTHESIS is already capable of completing nearly 99% of production drawings, so the majority of the time spent is in cosmetic modifications of the drawing with AutoCAD, plotting a D-size drawing on a Versatec Plotter, and double-checking the drawing." The program has been used for the joggle die design on other commercial airplanes and proven successful for production drawing.

Mr. Bill Kehner, Tool Engineer and CAD/CAM specialists who initiated the project almost two years ago, is eagerly waiting to apply the technology for design of joggle dies to the newly received Boeing 777 order. He said, "This type of tool design used to be done by vendors. Due to the demand to generate large volumes of designs during the early stages of a new airplane project. we would not be able to handle it in-house. But, now we can meet the demand by our own tool design group."

For more information, please contact:

The SYNTHESIS Company
2120 Ellis St
Bellingham WA 98225
Phone: 360-671-0417
E-mail: sales@synthesiscompany.com

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