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Supply chain for the PW1500G

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Supply chain for the PW1500G

Supply chains in engine manufacturing: the PW1500G for the new CSeries as an example of worldwide value creation.

05.2016 | author: Silke Hansen | 3 mins reading time

author:
Silke Hansen writes for AEROREPORT as a freelance journalist. For over ten years, she has covered the world of aviation focusing on tech­nology, innovation and the market. Corporate respon­sibility reporting is another of her specialty areas.

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The term “supply chain” refers to the entire value creation process for a given product. It begins with the sourcing of raw materials, covers all the various stages of pro­cessing that bring the pro­duct into its final form, and continues right through to the end customer. For air­craft engines, this pro­cess stretches from ore mines in Australia to air­lines in China. In today’s world, supply chains are inter­national or even global—and engine manu­facturing is no exception.

What makes value creation in this industry so special is its elevated level of tech­nology. Aircraft engines are high-tech products that are full of extremely complex and sophisticated tech­nologies. This has led to a relatively small pro­cure­ment market in which suppliers are highly specialized. Original equip­ment manu­facturers (OEMs) in the air­craft engine business also market themselves as one-stop providers, but in reality they manufacture only certain parts of their product in house. First and foremost they act as integrators, focusing on their core competencies and running their business on the basis of cooperation in order to spread the economic risks across multiple parties. That is important because of the extremely long nature of develop­ment and tech­nology cycles in the aviation business.

Equally important is the fact that aircraft and engines are produced in relatively small quantities rather than as mass-produced commodities. For example, in 2015 Airbus set a new record of 635 aircraft deliveries. In comparison, Volkswagen produces 836,000 cars a year in its Wolfsburg plant alone. That’s why aircraft and their engines need to have a high value by the time they reach the end of the supply chain. The average list price of a CSeries 100 with two PW1500G engines is currently in the region of ­71.8 million US dollars.

Sourcing raw materials

Engines are made from a variety of different materials including titanium, nickel, steel, aluminum, plastics, platinum and rhenium.
The most important of these are titanium and nickel. Titanium is used for the forward section (fan, compressor) while nickel is used in the high-temperature area (combustion chamber, turbine). Nickel ore is mined and then processed to obtain nickel. Major ore deposits can be found in Canada, Australia, Russia and ­Indonesia. Titanium is obtained from ilmenite ore, which is primarily mined in Australia, Scandinavia, North America and Malaysia.
Rather than using nickel and titanium in their elementary form, the aviation industry uses them in alloys. That’s because engineers can achieve better material properties by using a combination of multiple metals. A typical nickel-based alloy (Inconel Alloy 718) contains just 52.5% nickel combined with chromium (19%), iron (19%) and other metals. The required alloys are produced by specialized suppliers. They are delivered in the form of bars or ingots, which subsequently provide the basis for producing blanks.

Step into: the circular economy
The high prices of titanium, nickel and alloy elements such as platinum and rhenium make engines extremely valuable, which is why virtually all their parts are melted down when they come to the end of their useful life. In some cases components that have not yet reached the end of their service life can be repaired and used as spares. Certain materials can be recycled directly by non-aviation businesses. The remaining materials are melted down by recyclers, for example, and fed back into the manufacturing cycle as metals for alloy producers.

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Blank manufacturing

Foundries or forge shops are used to turn titanium or nickel-based alloys into blanks that—in the case of compressors and turbines—are used to produce blades, disks and rings. It typically takes somewhere between eight and ten weeks to produce a blank for a blade, and ten to twelve weeks for a disk. Blank manufacturing for low-pressure turbine blades is carried out worldwide depending on the complexity involved, primarily in Germany, the USA, Mexico and Israel. In compar­ison to other industries, blanks produced for aircraft engines already feature a high degree of complexity before they are forwarded to the finishing stage.

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Component manufacturing

The blank is forwarded to the “actual” supplier of the component for finishing. Aircraft engines are produced by teams of specialists who work together on individual engine modules.
Who is responsible for the different parts of the PW1500G?

  • Pratt & Whitney (USA) as the OEM: fan, high-­pressure compressor (rear four stages), low-­pressure compressor, combustion chamber
  • MTU: low-pressure turbine, high-pressure compressor (front four stages), brush seals
  • GKN Aerospace (United Kingdom): turbine exit casing, compressor intermediate case
  • Avio Aero (Italy): gear unit
  • ITP (Spain): structures, external parts
Example of low-pressure turbine: In the PW1500G, this consists of three stages and approximately 90 part numbers. To assemble this module a mechanic will need to handle a total of 1,228 individual parts. In reality, however, the number of different parts is even greater—MTU and its suppliers clamp and coat the cast blanks to create the finished parts.

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Module assembly

Once all the parts have been produced, they are assembled into modules. Engines are not made from individual parts, but rather from pre-assembled modules. The time required for assembly varies depending on the components involved. For example, it takes five working days to complete the assembly of the low-pressure turbine for the PW1500G. It is only at this stage of the process that bought-in parts delivered to the module manufacturer in a finished state come into play.
Where is everything assembled?

  • Core engine (high-pressure compressor, combustion chamber, high-pressure turbine):
    Pratt & Whitney, North Berwick, USA
  • Low-pressure turbine: MTU, Rzeszów, Poland

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Engine assembly

Finally everything is ready to produce the complete aircraft engine. All the suppliers send their modules to the OEM, Pratt & Whitney. The complete engine is ­assembled by Pratt & Whitney at the Mirabel ­Aerospace Centre at Montréal-Mirabel International Airport in Canada. This takes approximately four months, including the acceptance test on the test bed. All the points listed in the requirements specification must be fulfilled before the engine can be delivered to the aircraft manufacturer, Bombardier.

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Assembling the aircraft

Bombardier assembles the CSeries close to the Pratt & Whitney Canada plant. Another 15 to 20 aircraft are due to be completed this year, each requiring two engines. The manufacturers work simultaneously on multiple aircraft, which are at different stages of the assembly process. 315 deliveries are scheduled to be made by 2020, with annual production of up to 120 aircraft. Although these aircraft are being assembled in North America, the first CS100s will enter regular service in Europe.  

An aircraft and its engines—a glimpse behind the scenes
Bombardier has traditionally specialized in small­er regional jets, but its new CSeries marks a ­clear push into the short- and medium-haul aircraft market dominated by Airbus and Boeing. The Canadians are offering two models—the CS100 and the CS300—with seating for between 100 and 150 passengers (max. 160). The PW1500G is the exclusive powerplant for the CSeries. Firm orders have already been placed for 243 jets.

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End customers

The Lufthansa subsidiary Swiss is the first customer for this new family of aircraft. 20 of the smaller CS100 models are due to replace the airline’s aging Avro RJ100 “Jumbolinos”. Swiss’s pilots have already inspected the new aircraft on site in Canada. After familiarizing themselves with their new workplace, they embarked on some joint flight training across Europe together with the Bombardier flight crew. The CSeries aircraft with their PW1500G engines will cover routes within Europe when they enter regular service.

Step into: putting together the pieces
The final assembly of an aircraft is like a giant puzzle. All the parts from different suppliers all over the world must reach Canada on time, ready to be installed. And it’s not only the engines that are bought in—for example the CSeries includes a cockpit and fuselage from China, a tail section from Italy, and landing gear from Germany.

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Graphic by Peter Diehl

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