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An Airbus aircraft takes off or lands every 4 seconds. The Airbus workforce in the UK consists of around 12,000 employees and the company has operations in two locations: Broughton (North Wales) and Filton (Bristol). Among many other things, Filton is the place where wings for all Airbus aircraft are designed. Wing technology is a key factor in aircraft performance. Airbus is a leader in wing technology, thanks to its continuous progress in manufacturing processes.
Aircraft manufacturing must abide by high quality standards as well. Calibrating process instruments is a function that helps in maintaining high quality standards in the manufacturing process. Senior Instrumentation Engineer, Richard Salmon (Airbus UK, Filton) has been in the Airbus instrumentation department since 1987. The department is part of the site’s facilities and services group and is responsible for all areas of instrumentation and control used within the manufacturing process.
Calibration itself has brought many positive changes to the instrumentation department. “In the past we would swap instruments, which means having to keep a very large spares storeroom, but we have reduced this greatly with on-site calibrations”, Richard points out. Calibration documentation plays a major role, as all calibration data must be documented for the life of an aircraft plus 10 years. The early version of the calibration database could store what instruments were installed, where and what were the calibration dates, but not the actual calibration record.
With regards to calibration, all pressure and vacuum gauges, as well as transmitters, are generally brought to the workshop for calibration. Most temperature calibrations are done on site. Temperatures on site run from -80?C to +1150?C, and handheld calibrators are used for weekly checks.
“At a QM6 demo day, we not only saw a system we could use, but also that problems we had in our prevailing calibration system had been addressed within QM6”, Richard says. The demo day was in 1995 and soon after that QM6 was in use at the Filton site. At the moment, QM6 is being upgraded to CMX, the new calibration management software by Beamex. QM6 is used as the database at the main site and all instruments used on site, which affect the manufacturing of aircraft parts, are on QM6. It is a part of the site’s main audit trail (JAR21G) and it forms part of the site’s license to produce.
Calibration management software saves time and means less paperwork: even the calibration work lists are downloaded electronically to each calibrator. “There is no other calibration system that talks to calibrators as well as Beamex’s does”, Richard comments. With a system providing excellent calibrator communication, Airbus is able to automate the pre-defined calibration procedures. In addition, calibration management software is used for producing dispatch sheets, position labels, work lists for each area and the weekly and monthly report sheets. The workshop utilizes a Beamex calibration bench system with panel-mounted calibrators. Portable calibrators, such as the MC5 multifunction calibrator, are used for calibrations on site.
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