Keith Young, Technical Specialist for Phantom Works, the advanced manufacturing research and development group of The Boeing Company, attended the MAG4 product rollout at Makino’s corporate headquarters in Japan. We met with Mr. Young and captured his thoughts on the event, the MAG4 and the future of aerospace engineering.

Today’s aerospace manufacturers are faced with the daunting job of developing accurate, efficient processes in the ever-increasing move toward lightweight, monolithic part production. The first development in the evolution toward better production was the original gantry, which introduced greater efficiencies and less room for error to aerospace manufacturers. Today, the next generation in process development for monolithic parts production is the MAG4 high-speed machining center, which was rolled out for public viewing at Makino’s headquarters in Tokyo, Japan during the fall of 2000. Keith Young and Amy Helvey, Technical Specialists for The Boeing Company’s Phantom Works research and development group, were there.

Young and Helvey have worked extensively in the testing and development of high-speed machining processes for Boeing in St. Louis, who recently sold their fabrication facilities to GKN Aerospace. Although manufacturing is no longer done by Boeing’s St. Louis group (design and assembly are the core focuses), several of Boeing’s suppliers are in the position to invest in high-speed mills. As such, Boeing’s interests are in supplier management and supplier technology integration. This means their task at hand is to develop good processes that can be used by Boeing’s supplier base, resulting in lower overall parts cost.

“This is a state-of-the-art machine,” Young says, referring to the MAG4. “And it benefits us to try to get that state-of-the-art technology into the Boeing supplier base because it will lower our costs and decrease our cycle times. And that is important, because you can have more time for design if you know you can get the part out in a shorter time.”

During the machining demonstration, Young was impressed by the easy and fast motion as well as the quiet sound of the spindle cutting. “My impression of the machine was that it was very smooth and very precise,” he says. “It is the finest machine I’ve seen.” The MAG4 combines feed rates up to 1,574 IPM, a 60-tool magazine and a 30,000 rpm spindle for maximized speed and productivity. “The spindle design and the design of the tool changer are both quite innovative,” Young continues. “There are no hydraulics going into the spindle for a tool change. The spindle comes over and an arm pushes against it to release the tool.” In Young’s view, this is a serious advantage. “I have seen a lot of problems with reliability involving high-pressure hydraulic lines that go through slip rings. They tend to fail, then hydraulic oil gets into the electrical components and that leads to spindle problems. The MAG4 would solve that problem.”

Another benefit to the MAG4 design that Young found impressive was the innovative axis design. The MAG4’s A and C axes virtually eliminate moving wires, tubes, or hoses outside of the body of the machining center. “One design advantage,” he says, “is the continuous C axis. It can rotate infinitely without having to rotate cables and hoses.” Another benefit Young took note of was the MAG4’s performance when contouring in five axes. “I’m not used to seeing a machine move in five axes so smoothly and with such speed,” he says. The result is higher productivity. “With the MAG4, they were able to contour at very high feed rates in five axes and still make a precise surface.”

Young cites productivity and reliability as key benefits of the MAG4 for the aerospace manufacturing industry. “Productivity and reliability are the main drivers for high-speed machining. A machine has got to be productive enough. For instance, it has to have a high metal removing rate so that you can get your parts through quickly. But the major issue we struggled with here at Boeing was reliability. If you’re machine is only up 30 percent of the time, chances are it is not going to be worth your money.”

“The initial investment on the MAG4 may be more than other machining centers out there, but when you relate costs to productivity, the cost per hour of operation is going to be a lot less,” he says. “If you can get the reliability, you are going to be more productive. And if you are more productive you can take on more work. And if you can take on more work, in the end that has to make the price of the part go down. And that is good for us.”

What will tomorrow’s generation of high-speed machining centers hold for monolithic parts production? It’s hard to say. But Keith Young has some ideas, “I think eventually digital manufacturing will allow us to input a solid model and output a finished part.”

But that possibility is somewhere down the road, for now. Today, the best option for handling the increased demand for light, monolithic aluminum parts manufacturing seems clear. For better productivity in a reliable machine, the MAG4 wins, hands down.

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