"Ready for take-off "

New data interface between KROMI and ZOLLER gives a new thrust to the A350

The partnership between KROMI and ZOLLER is not accidental: both companies provide innovative solutions for optimizing machining. But two companies that seem to be working on common ground at first glance turn out on closer inspection to complement each other perfectly and be an ideal match. While ZOLLER, as an expert for tool presetting and measuring as well as toolmanagement, focuses on optimizing machine operating times with innovative tool presetting equipment, KROMI, as a machining expert, aims at optimizing the cost per component with an ingenious tool supply concept.

The innovative solutions from ZOLLER not only enable the micron-precise setting and calibration of the tools. The fast set-up and checking of the tool geometry and the condition of the cutting blades effectively reduces machine downtimes. In addition, the actual tool data can be transferred directly to the CAM system or the NC machine to save even more valuable production time.

The KROMI Tool Management system, on the other hand, aims at the optimization of the entire supply chain. As part of the complete supply of a production area, all tool removals are recorded through the KROMI Tool Center KTC, the KROMI Kanban system and the KROMI eCommerce software KeC. The basis for the KROMI system solution is a central database that not only stores all the master data of a tool in the form of an electronic tool catalog, but also captures all the transaction data without omissions. Informative and reliable productivity indicators can be derived and evaluated from these data every 10 minutes if required.

All tool removals are recorded through the KROMI Tool Center KTC

The coupling of the two systems offers unbeatable advantages for the user. For instance, the KROMI Tool Management system provides all the necessary geometrical tool data required for the tool setting procedure, and therefore ultimately for the optimization of the machining process, in the ZOLLER system. The interface between the two systems in the DIN 4000 format structure now allows the tool data to be directly and automatically imported from the electronic KROMI tool catalog into the ZOLLER Tool Management Solutions TMS via the web service. This renders the time-consuming creation and maintenance of tool data totally superfluous for ZOLLER customers in future. Needless to say, the data exchange also offers further functions and benefits: for example, pick lists and removal lists can also be compared with the current warehouse and inventory data from the KROMI logistics systems. Through the coupling of the two system worlds from KROMI and ZOLLER in terms of data, the user obtains a superordinate overall system with a uniform data basis. That does not only create potential for rationalization by reducing the effort required in maintaining the data, it also means that the customer obtains the cost savings achieved by both companies double – as it were, in twin pack.

Those are arguments that have also impressed the manufacturing professionals at the Airbus plant in Stade in northern Germany. Among other parts, the upper wing shell and a portion of the fuselage of the brand new wide-body A350 are manufactured there – of course from lightweight carbon fiber, a material that is seen as the new hope of aircraft constructors. However, the special CFRP material also places extremely high demands on machining. In addition to other processes, a new water-jet cutting method with a pressure of up to 4000 bar has therefore been developed, which can be used on the same machining centers to complement conventional metal-cutting techniques. In this field KROMI has already been among the selected suppliers for many years now.

While KROMI takes care of the comprehensive supply of tools at all Airbus sites in its capacity as certified tool manager, and ZOLLER also has presetting and measuring devices in use at many locations, the production for the A350 will now be supported jointly by the two companies in future at the Stade plant. In the view of the European aircraft manufacturers, the new interface between the KROMI-ZOLLER system worlds offers such great potential that a pilot project has recently been started at the Stade location. In this project, both the KROMI tool dispensing system and the ZOLLER presetting devices, including the latter's Tool Management Solutions and the connectivity to the CAM software, are directly integrated into the production island. But a continuous data connection is not the only benefit provided by the partnership between KROMI and ZOLLER. From now on, all the tool data required for tool-setting processes are directly available on-site, as is their maintenance by KROMI. The tedious manual entry of data that was necessary up to now is therefore eliminated.