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This tour follows CW’s 2023 article that explored the history of (Charlotte, N.C., U.S.), a subsidiary of (Arlington, Va., U.S.), and its roadmap for a thermoplastic composite (TPC) nacelle structure as a pathfinder part.

The Collins Aerospace Riverside facility used to be an army base before Rohr took it over in 1952, followed by Goodrich, UTC and Collins in 2018. “It first manufactured metallic products and evolved to thermoset [TS] composites, using autoclave and then out-of-autoclave [OOA] cure, and is now pursuing TPC,” explains Christian Soria, head of technology and innovation strategy for Collins’ Advanced Structures business. The pilot TPC line is here because we want to continue to build on this legacy of technology transition from R&D to an industrial setting by tapping into our experts who are manufacturing production parts every day.”

Nacelle programs, composite developments

We enter the main production building where a “history wall” shows past and current programs. “We’ve won nacelle business on most every modern aircraft and re-engine opportunity that we’ve pursued in the past 20 years,” notes Soria. This includes the Airbus A220, Embraer E2, Boeing 787 and Airbus A350, as well as the A320 Neo when equipped with Pratt & Whitney’s PW1100G geared turbofan. “We’re the only supplier that has designed and certified a nacelle for this architecture, including all new analysis and tooling,” he adds.

A350 fan cowl, IFS. He highlights the large inner fixed structure (IFS) of the nacelle, noting that it is still made with prepreg but applying higher levels of automation in the layup and assembly line. From a materials perspective, he says, “We’ve designed most of our programs to avoid more exotic high-temp materials. Instead, we use a robust thermal protection system and developed a prepreg that we use on as many parts of the structure as possible, which standardizes materials and improves overall factory efficiency.

“All our external nacelle structures are mostly skin-stringer laminate versus honeycomb construction,” he continues, “which enables more rapid manufacturing. These are complicated structures that must withstand large pressure deltas, require applying lightning strike protection [LSP], and a high-quality paint finish in customer livery. We must also meet the acoustic and aerodynamics requirements. Thus, the surface quality and tolerances we need to maintain are very critical.”

B787 inner barrel. Soria shows a one-piece composite inner barrel with an acoustically treated TS composite sandwich structure. The 787 nacelle inlet is also composite. “This program really drove the extended use of composites in harsh environments, replacing a lot of traditional metallic construction. This inner barrel has no splice — a technology we pioneered — which avoids the large spike in acoustic noise it caused,” he explains.

“As we continue to evolve nacelle designs, we’re looking at making almost the entire structure composite. There are many potential candidates for OOA TS composites and TPC conversions, especially when we’re talking about high-rate programs like the single-aisles which are targeting up to 100 airplanes/month. We picked the fan cowl as our pathfinder because it incorporates most of the technology bricks required for large TPC aerostructures, including more integrated solutions via welding. That’s an advantage because you don’t have to allow extra spacing or thicknesses for fasteners — every bit of weight, volume and improved efficiency counts.”

Factory layout, industrialization, training center

Entering the main production hall, we are joined by Keith Ritchie, technical lead for the Collins Aerospace Aerostructures business segment. “The flow of the nacelle production starts at the other end of this building with receiving materials,” he explains, “and finishes on this side with parts sent out, with multiple product lines moving through in parallel.”

Walking halfway down the main aisle in this production building, Ritchie continues, “Here in the center is where a lot of the manufacturing engineers and support are located, so they can directly deploy into the product lines on the left and right.” He points to a set of video screens. “Throughout the plant, you’ll see visual controls like these where production is tracked and everyone knows at any point in time where parts are and what needs to be addressed. We’re continuously improving our production lines with even more sensor-driven and real-time data collection.”

Through a door to the left, we enter the composites training center. “We bring in anyone from new hire composite layup technicians to engineers designing composite parts to our leadership,” says Ritchie. “We don’t separate them into unique classes but instead want them to share different perspectives and viewpoints.” Metal tools line the right side and back of the room, each with twin laser projectors from Virtek Vision (Waterloo, Ont., Canada) mounted overhead. Nine stations total are set up for different parts and variations (for example, left-hand and right-hand outer skin) based on a real nacelle program. “These are real tools, materials and production planning systems,” he adds, “to replicate exactly what technicians will be doing on the floor, from reading drawings to layup, bagging, cure and getting all the quality inspection stamps. The training combines classroom and hands-on sessions.”

Bond shops

We exit the training center and turn left into the bond shop that comprises the left side of this building. “There are three bays here,” explains Soria. “The one in the middle cuts and kits the plies for the layup bays on either side. These are A220 and E2 components, where we’re doing hand layup prepreg.” Each station again has twin Virtek laser projectors.

These layup processes optimize autoclave capacity through tool design enabling multiple parts per tool and less energy use. Backing paper from consumed prepreg ply kits are sitting on large carts. The carts will soon go back to the center cutting bay to be restocked. “We are more and more conscious about the sustainability of what we do,” notes Soria. “We see TPC and OOA TS as being a part of the equation to reduce waste and improve our energy use even more.”

RFI. We walk toward the end of this bay to the resin film infusion (RFI) station for the inner barrel of the A220 nacelle. There are four dry fiber layup stations, each with four Virtek laser projectors. Soria explains how RFI works: “We apply LSP material first, then the dry noncrimp fabric [NCF] and resin film, then vacuum bag and cure in an autoclave. We switched to RFI due to the NCF’s drapability versus plain weave prepreg over the stiffener mandrels, which improved efficiency and overall cycle time.

“We talk about converting TS to TPC because it also improves production efficiency and eliminates waste,” Soria continues. “And consumables are a big part of that — not just vacuum bag materials but also curing tools like the mandrels we use to maintain the shape of the three omega stiffeners on these TS composite panels during cure. With TPC stamp forming and welding, automation can be applied to those steps, and we believe we can significantly improve consistency and reduce waste for a lot of these secondary elements.”

Reticulated resin stations. “Most structures within the fan duct of a nacelle have perforated skins for noise attenuation and most of our perforated skins are precured,” notes Ritchie. “Adhesive film is then added and has to be reticulated — in other words, blown out of the holes.” An automated cell for that process features a robot with a heater in the center surrounded by blocker door skins on a carousel.

Kitting bay, AFP cell. We walk through the kitting bay in between the two bond rooms, which includes two automated cutters from Gerber Technology, a Lectra company (Tolland, Conn., U.S.) and racks of breather material plus four additional cutters at the far right and rear of the room. We then enter the second bond room. “This side is mostly for the A350 nacelle,” says Soria. “You’ll see the IFS on the left and inlets on the right, mostly using hand layup but we do use an automated fiber placement [AFP] cell for the IFS skin layups.” A Coriolis Composites (Quéven, France) AFP system in front of us features one side where an IFS tool is being loaded while a layup is in process on the other side.

Pulsed line for IFS. Soria turns and points out the pulsing line for the IFS layup comprising five stations on a mezzanine that moves down the room on rails. “The lines in the other bay are static, where all steps from layup to bagging are completed at each station,” he explains. “But here, we keep the tool constantly moving, and there are technicians at every station that are doing just that portion of the layup. Parts on these pulsed lines are larger and require more steps than those on the static lines. When our teams did the studies to optimize this layup process, a pulsed line gave them enough savings to justify it. It’s a continuous process because as the mezzanine moves down, a new link is moved to the beginning. And the number of stations can be increased or decreased. These lines are always being optimized to meet current demand.”

At the other end of the bond room, A320 Neo inlets are also being produced on pulsing lines.

“This is part of our lean production initiative,” Soria continues. “Lean has been in our DNA since the 90s. You’ll see the results of that across this facility, and it’s continuously being put into action in terms of measuring the cycle time of every step.”

Ritchie notes this again draws on multiple perspectives. “I’ll see technicians, engineering and leadership with notepads and stopwatches, evaluating where we have inefficiencies and how we can improve. And we talk about automation to improve efficiency, but that also requires investment and isn’t the solution to everything. Instead, the key is finding that right balance and doing the trade studies.”

Autoclaves, hole drilling

We exit the bond room into an area with 9 autoclaves along the outside wall. “Parts come from the two layup and bond rooms for cure in these autoclaves,” says Soria. “Then we have inspection stations at the very end.” We exit this room, cross the main aisle and enter a second autoclave area on the right side of the building. In this area, three autoclaves are on the right, deflashing of the parts occurs on the left and a perforation area is beyond that at the far left. Additional inspection stations are at the far right. Tool cleanup and tool maintenance is also performed in this area.

As we walk toward the perforation area, we pass IFS structures that appear almost transparent due to the many holes drilled in the skin. “The faceskin is precured, resin flash is removed and the part is brought here to the multihead drilling systems,” says Ritchie. Here, four (Annecy, France) robotic cells, each with multiple drilling spindles produce thousands of holes quickly. Multiple heads are ready to be swapped in when the current head wears out, so there’s no downtime. “These skins are then inspected because the holes can’t be blocked and the number of holes per surface area is a quality requirement we have to meet,” he adds.

We exit this building at the rear and walk to Building 41 which houses production of 787 nacelles. We first enter an area filled with CNC machines, then walk through doorways to the layup room and postprocessing room, which includes another inspection area with four robotic ultrasound testing cells.

“And this shows you our full experience with TS composites and our history and evolution,” says Soria as we exit the building. “We wanted to show you this so you could see why we are doing TPC development here. That industrial expertise and experience co-located with current manufacturing of real parts helps us during development to weed out a lot of the bugs as we evolve and prove out the processes. Unlike what we’ve seen today with TS, which tend to be very tool- and infrastructure-heavy, TPC processes tend to be more agile and nimble. So, we’re developing the technology here, but we can then adapt it for wherever we need it.”

TPC pilot line

As we enter the building that houses this pilot production line, the tour is joined by Michel van Tooren, senior technical fellow of composites at Collins Aerospace, and David Manten, director of technology development of thermoplastics at Collins Aerospace. They explain this pilot line is built around the fan cowl pathfinder, which is a stiffened structure with a large piece of relatively thin skin, but with a lot of cutouts, including multiple doors for access. There are Z-shaped and hollow hat stiffeners, attachments for metal parts and LSP is required. “It’s a perfect pathfinder for us, because everything you see in an aircraft structure is all concentrated in a single part,” adds van Tooren.

ATL blanks. We walk to an area on the left with a (Leek, Netherlands) Falko high-rate (up to 450 square meters/hour) automated tape laying (ATL) machine. “We receive 12-inch-wide tape, which is then slit to about 2 inches wide in Almere, and then sent here,” says van Tooren. “In this ATL, we just tack the tape together using ultrasonic heating.”

Pre-consolidation, stamp forming. The tacked blanks then go through a consolidation cycle to get all the air out and make a solid plate, says Manten, “and only then do you move to thermoforming.” Van Tooren notes normally two different presses would be used for pre-consolidation versus stamping.

For now, the pilot line uses, a single Pinette Emidecau Industries (PEI, Chalon Sur Saone, France) 245 metric ton press. “After pre-consolidation, we switch it to stamp forming mode. On the left-hand side, there’s an infrared [IR] oven to preheat the blank all the way through,” continues van Tooren. That’s also why you need to pre-consolidate, achieving a homogeneous layer to conduct heat from the outer to inner layers quickly. And then the heated blank is shuttled from the oven into typically a set of matched molds which are closed quickly. You then stamp form and cool the part down to a certain temperature and then take it out of the moldset.”

Stamping, fusion joining. “We intend to build parts as much as possible with stamp forming,” says van Tooren. “Most of the stamp forming we do is at the Almere facility in the Netherlands, but we do have some research capability here.” He shows a TPC longeron for the fan cowl developed some years ago that has a slight curvature and some local pad ups. He contrasts this with the three hollow hat stiffeners needed for the semi-circular fan cowl. 

“The stiffener is a much more complex and important part,” says Manten. “As well as being curved, its thickness varies, optimized to be thickest at the stiffener cap with a thinner laminate on the flange. And the fiber orientation also varies, aligned with the direction of the curvature on the cap, while down the sides you need more 45° plies.”

“And this stiffener is larger than what has been stamp formed before,” says van Tooren. “So, these stiffeners are made by integrating multiple stamp-formed segments into a single large, curved stiffener by a process called fusion forming.” The segments are placed onto a shaped metal tool and the fusion forming machine then applies heat and pressure. “So, you are fusing them together. In welding, none of the parts are completely melted. You’re only melting at the interface. But for this subassembly, you melt the whole cross-section so that the parts are fused. It’s more like co-consolidation.”

AFP skins. The integrated stiffeners will be welded to the fan cowl skin, which is made using AFP. We walk to the back of the TPC pilot line building to the AFP room, which houses a Coriolis Composites C1 robotic AFP cell. “These skins have double curvature and also require LSP on the outside,” says van Tooren. “Again, we start with prepreg tape, but now with 0.25-inch-wide instead of the 2-inch-wide tape in the ATL because this needs to be able to make the compound curvature of the fan cowl. The tapes are laser heated and applied onto the layup tool. It’s not in situ consolidation [ISC] because our goal is to lay up as fast as possible.

“It’s not that we don’t believe in using ISC,” explains Soria, “because there are other areas of our business where we are applying it. It just doesn’t make sense for the fan cowl skins. It works better for structures of revolution, like tubes and cylinders. But these are open panels, so it’s hard to apply pressure and achieve full consolidation during the automated layup process.

“We have also developed a special solution to deal with the first layer and how to make it adhere to the tool,” notes van Tooren. “This current AFP setup basically enables three different types of activities. For the fan cowl, we mostly use the machine to work with traditional layups on negative and positive molds; we also have a tailstock, so we can do layups onto a rotational axis; and we have a separate station where the robot can reach and make flat plates for dialing in parameters during process development for a specific material.”

VBO consolidation. Finished skins are vacuum bagged and placed in a walk-in oven (Wisconsin Oven, East Troy, Wis., U.S.), says van Tooren. “But if you want fast production that is energy efficient, you would not heat air but instead heat a shell tool that is only a few millimeters thick. So, this is not the final solution but it proves we don’t need autoclaves.”

Welding. We walk back out of the AFP room and halfway toward the front of the building to the welding area where we see an aluminum fan cowl tool being used in the pilot line. “This is our in-house induction welding system and the welding tool,” says van Tooren. “The longeron and stiffeners are laid inside the tool, the skin is placed on top and then you weld the parts together. The robot is programmed to follow the path of the curved weld lines. We are also working on a wide range of welding and joining techniques.”

“We have a lot of different parts and variations of parts,” adds Soria, “and we don’t think that one type of welding will fit all these applications.”

“We’re going to weld one fan cowl using ultrasonic welding,” continues van Tooren. “Ultrasonics is a very old technology that comes in many different variations. We’re also exploring vibration welding. It has a cycle time of seconds and is used in automotive to weld things like headlight assemblies. And in conduction welding, we conduct heat into the parts only at the welding surface.”

“For certain configurations this technique works better,” says Manten. “For every configuration, there is a welding technology that works the best. And we have to test for this. It depends on the product, the area being welded and the shape you need to follow.”

“Earlier I said we are doing trade studies constantly and balancing all the requirements,” adds Soria. “And the one thing we want to have is a good understanding and knowledge of all these capabilities so that we can optimize in those trade studies when we’re designing these parts.”

NDT, painting. Nondestructive testing (NDT) is also an important part, notes van Tooren. “But you need to make sure you have the reference standards so that you know what you’re looking at, and you also need criteria for parts and assemblies. We are working on that as well and using various technologies. The key is to see the integrity of the whole weld as well as having a method that is fast and scalable.

“Painting is also something we are working on,” he continues. “It’s not really different than thermosets, but you need to look into it. You need to make sure you have a clean surface and that the LSP works. We have lightning strike test capability in Chula Vista. So, there’s also a lot of engineering testing in parallel to make sure that what we produce is not just a show piece but works in flight. We have an entire materials and testing lab on-site, so we can do lap shear and pull-off testing, which we do for paint as well.”

Tour of Almere, Netherlands facility: Evolution of DTC

CW’s tour of Collins Aerospace in Almere was led by Manten and began with the history of what was previously Dutch Thermoplastic Components (DTC). “In the early 1990s, there was a lot of development work in TPC at Delft University where I was studying. Fokker was already working in it and that’s where so many of the leaders in TPC came from, including Michel van Tooren [Collins Aerospace], Arnt Offringa [Fokker] and Winand Kok [Toray and ]. When I graduated in 1995, all of these companies were started within a few months including KVE Composites and Airborne. By 1998, I had officially formed DTC.

“We were mostly making prototypes, including a smoke detector enclosure for Boeing, working with their R&T in Seattle and participated in their first specification for thermoplastic stamping,” continues Manten. “In 1999, we got a contract together with KVE to demonstrate a TPC rudder rib for the Boeing 777. We then got a contract for ribs in the landing flaps for the Dornier 328. It was a TS composite structure, but with ribs using carbon fiber [CF]/polyetherimide. And we continued with aerospace prototypes, small manufacturing projects like ski helmets and some automotive prototypes.

“Then came the Boeing 787, and because we were on the process spec, we got the opportunity for a work package of parts in 2006-2007,” says Manten. “We installed ultrasonic testing [UT], CNC machining and grew to 10-15 people. That production took off by 2011, but we had also started working with Premium Aerotec, now Airbus Aerostructures, in 2009, and by 2012, we had 800 part numbers on the A350. We added more equipment and grew to 85 people by 2016.”

Materials being used by Airbus and Boeing at that time included Cetex CF-reinforced polyphenylene (PPS) woven laminates from Toray Advanced Composites (Nijverdal, Netherlands). “Between 2015 and 2020, we added a lot of different processes to enable making parts from unidirectional [UD] tape,” says Manten, “and also with PEKK and PAEK polymers. We installed a Boikon ATL, a tape slitter and more automated processes, including shuttle press consolidation and continuous compression molding [CCM]. We also expanded our tool shop and now build almost all our tools in-house.”

In fact, all of the required processes are in-house: raw material cutting, formatting and layup, consolidation, stamping, machining, inspection and painting. “Finished parts are shipped ready for the assembly line,” says Manten. “A few years ago, we also started to develop certain kinds of welding and fusion forming. We also do some tabletop assembly, attaching small parts to certain brackets.

“In 2016, we started working with Collins Aerospace on a prototype TPC longeron for a nacelle fan cowl and became part of Collins Advanced Structures in 2021,” says Manten. “What we do here is a very specialized technology within a still relatively small industry for TPC parts. That capability all depends on the expertise we’ve developed. And it’s not just the machines but people are essential in that story, and the know-how we have established over years to build the tools and form the parts.”

The era of TPC

Manten says the long-awaited era of TPC is indeed coming with parts on new aircraft, including the next-generation single-aisle (NGSA). “There are already 10,000 TPC parts in an A350, but they are small, relatively simple parts, and the same is true for the 787. I think a welded TPC fuselage will come, but not for the next airplane.”

Manten also believes more hybrid thermoplastic and TS structures will be seen near-term as well as large TPC parts. “TPC floor beams were manufactured for the MFFD,” he notes. “The volume of these needed for an NGSA would literally be 100,000 parts/year.” What about using TPC parts in vertical and horizontal tail planes (VTP, HTP)? Although these are much smaller than wings, production for 75 aircraft/month — the rate for the A320 family that it hopes to reach by 2027 — will be challenging. Manten notes there are already TPC ribs in A320 elevators. Meanwhile, Airbus Aerostructures in Bremen announced at ITHEC 2024 that it was manufacturing TPC ribs and in January 2025.

“But this technology wasn’t available when the A350 VTP went into production,” he says. “The only option then was to make ribs out of CF/PPS fabric, which isn’t as well-suited structurally for the VTP as UD materials. Larger components are now being developed and materials are being qualified. There will be a ton of TPC components on the NGSA but still with a lot of mechanical assembly while welding will progress part by part. I think we all realize that qualifying welding in a primary structure is a big effort. There are some welded structures flying today but none out of UD tape. Development is still needed to establish processes and get them qualified. We are advancing welding to larger and more complex parts, which is not easy, but it is happening.”

Production hall, materials, cutting

“We have occupied this building since 2009,” notes Manten as we enter the large production hall. The flow is U-shaped, with cutting, stamping and finishing on the side where we enter and materials storage, the tape lab, CCM line and tool shop on the other side.

We start at the beginning of the process, with materials storage at the top of the “U.” “All production we have now for commercial aircraft is based on fabric-reinforced thermoplastics, mostly CF/PPS,” says Manten. “This includes all the clips, brackets and ribs which start with laminates from Toray — previously TenCate. The material does not need freezer storage like TS prepreg, and every thickness of material is its own part number, with materials specified for Airbus, Boeing and Embraer.”

We walk to the right where a technician carries a large pre-consolidated sheet to an automated cutting table in an enclosed room. “We cut the laminates into plies from which we stamp form the parts,” explains Manten. “We look ahead in our ERP system to see what parts are coming up in the next week, and parts made from the same materials are input into this cutting system’s software to create an optimum nesting of those plies and minimum waste.” PROfirst CAD/CAM software ( Grabenstätt, Germany) is used in a (Rimini, Italy) cutting system. These plies are kitted into blanks and trimmed, ready to be stamp formed.

Stamping

Each part has its own recipe included in its digital traveler accessed by a bar code on the blank. We see the flat blanks converted into a shape. “This is a typical clip used to connect the fuselage frames to the skin for the A350 or 787,” says Manten. There are seven stamping presses (, Glauchau, Germany) on this side which use aluminum or steel matched toolsets.

An IR oven behind each press preheats a blank in about 2.5 minutes, the oven opens, the blank is shuttled onto the lower male tool in the press and the press closes immediately. The toolset has been heated also, but below the melting temperature of the TPC matrix. “The total cycle time for this clip is 5 minutes, but forming time depends on the part thickness and shape,” notes Manten. “This is a relatively thin part and simple shape.”

We walk past a set of hat stiffener segments for the Collins Aerospace pathfinder fan cowl and a press with a curved metal male tool inside. “Here we’re making a much more complex part using a blank with variable thickness and UD tape, enabling us to locally tailor the laminate,” says Manten. “Making parts out of Cetex sheets is like stamping sheet metal because they are low thickness. But for larger and more structural parts, UD tape gives the ability to ramp up and down in thickness. Otherwise, the parts are simply too heavy.”

Inspection, KPIs

We exit the left side of the “U” through a walkway to the right side and turn left. About halfway up is a room with three Crysta-Apex coordinate measuring machines (CMM) from Mitutoyo (Kanagawa, Japan) and a technician scanning a part. “We use these to locate the part before we start machining,” says Manten. “We manufacture thousands of different part numbers in different sized production runs, depending on the customer and build rate. The CMM is used to confirm that the geometries of each part are in the intended locations before it gets located in the CNC machining systems.”

Outside of the CMM room there is a large display showing KPIs. Alexander Gahn, the managing director of this facility, has joined the tour and explains this is part of the lean manufacturing system from Collins Aerospace Aerostructures. “It tells us exactly where we are,” he says. “The colors indicate if we’re on target or if action is needed. It provides a constant monitoring of our production and if we’re meeting the requirements in safety, cycle time, rejected parts, etc.”

We walk past plastic boxes stacked vertically, each filled with TPC parts. “There is a different part number in each of these boxes,” says Manten. “We have 2,500 to 3,000 different part numbers in production, all at different rates.”

Next, we enter the NDT room which houses an Omniscan MX2 UT system including a C-scan tank (Olympus, now part of Evident, Tokyo, Japan). “For some products, we do 100% inspection while others on a sampling basis,” says Manten. “We use a water tank-based pulse echo system and are qualified per each of our different customers and also NADCAP qualified for this NDT.” Parts are placed into the tank manually and then scanned one at a time. “But with these small parts, the typical cycle time is close to that of the press, so this is fast enough,” he explains. “It’s simple and manual but works very well.”

Tape Lab, CCM

Across from the NDT area is the Tape Lab. “This is where we make our own plates and panels,” says Manten. “Depending on the part, we use ATL or hand layup. And in thermoplastics, hand layup is not so bad, because these products are not tacky, so laying it up actually takes very little time.”

We exit the Tape Lab and walk farther, seeing an automated Rucks shuttle press used for consolidating these in-house produced laminates. “We use either this press or the CCM machine,” says Manten. “For the press, we first load the material between steel plates. These are then loaded into the press, which performs the heating cycle and immediately closes for compression, typically for a cycle of half an hour. The nice thing about this process is that you can make laminates with thickness variation. And what comes out is not as big as the Cetex sheets, but it’s a step up in complexity using UD tapes.”

The other consolidation process uses the CCM line, which feeds in the large rolls from the Tape Lab and presses them between a heated die that opens and closes while the tape is pulled through. Although the line is designed for flat laminates — which so far can contain up to 36 plies — it can also produce shaped profiles. Examples are stacked nearby.

Machining, painting, tooling

As we leave this area, we see a box full of CF/PPS trimming skeletons from the automated cutter. “We work together with Spiral RTC [Enschede, Netherlands] to recycle and reuse all of this waste material,” says Manten. Next, we enter the machining area with six five-axis machining cells that occupy this end of the production hall where parts are finished after stamping. Manten notes an ARES enclosed cell (CMS, Zogno, Italy): “It’s standard machining technology, but works well for these parts.”

The final area of the tour is the tool production shop at the end of the building with three CNC cells from Haas Automation (Oxnard, Calif., U.S.), a DNM 750L II cell (, Seoul, South Korea) and racks full of machined metal tools. “These show the complexity that we produce in these TPC parts,” says Manten. There are families of tools for serial production and also more complex tools made from different components. Most are steel for relatively high output, but aluminum is used as well.

“We also have a shop where we apply edge sealing — a layer of resin over the trimmed edges — and coatings,” he continues. “Some parts need that for isolation to prevent galvanic corrosion when there's aluminum close by. And while most parts go unpainted, some require a primer.”

As we exit the production hall, I ask about the future of this facility. “We are planning for growth,” concludes Manten.