PARIS — October 2017 — Lectra is empowering Dassault Falcon Jet to exceed the expectations of its clientele with faster turnaround times and enhanced quality.
A Customer-Driven Business Transformation
Marked by a relentless pursuit of excellence and innovation building the most advanced business jets on the market, Dassault Falcon Jet has earned a reputation as the finest aircraft company in the world. The company focuses on high-quality production to personalize business jets meeting customers’ exacting requirements. The process begins in France, where the airframe, engine and avionics are assembled, ending in Little Rock, where the aircraft is finished with a custom livery and interior hand-crafted to precise specifications.
Due to their customers’ ability to change interior design specifications during completion, Dassault Falcon Jet needed greater flexibility to meet customer requests faster and more efficiently. Design for manufacturability is a major consideration due to aggressive cost targets and a chief reason behind the company’s digital specification-to-delivery process—the most advanced in the industry.
The Little Rock upholstery shop has recently undergone significant reorganization to align the production of aircraft interiors with the digital specification-to-delivery process. After first streamlining its design studio with DesignConcept® 3D design and costing software, Dassault Falcon Jet turned once more to Lectra to revolutionize its cutting room with acquisition of a Versalis® digital leather cutting solution.
A First Major Change With 3-D Design And Prototyping
Before working with Lectra, Dassault Falcon Jet used 2-D software for the design and development of aircraft seating. The upholstery shop’s highly manual prototyping process did not capitalize on the company’s use of 3-D data and often resulted in inconsistent quality.
Following a successful proof of concept, Dassault Falcon Jet progressively implemented six DesignConcept workstations, laying the foundation for a fully digital development process. Rollout of DesignConcept design and virtual prototyping solution enabled the customer to iterate into 3D designs directly, eliminating the need to make as many physical mock-ups.
FROM Digital Design TO A Full-Fledged Digital Value Chain
Following Dassault Falcon Jet’s switch to 3-D design and prototyping, the company turned its efforts to increasing efficiency and productivity in the upholstery shop. Acquisition of a Versalis has enabled the customer to extend the digital value chain from seat design through to leather cutting execution. Now Dassault Falcon Jet can develop patterns using DesignConcept prototyping software and directly export 3-D data into the Versalis digital leather cutting solution.
Powered by data intelligence and advanced cut preparation software, Versalis eliminates variation and reduces the number of over-cuts to optimize yield on expensive full-grain leather. The advanced cutting technology incorporates hide scanning and laser projection to give operators a high degree of control over the placement of parts. By eliminating the deformation of cut parts, Dassault Falcon Jet has achieved a substantial improvement in quality. Leather cut execution is now more accurate, with a rate of rejected pieces approaching zero. The upholstery shop’s leather yield has furthermore increased from 5 percent to 10 percent.
A Smoother Overall Process For The Production Of Custom Interiors
With the addition of Versalis, Dassault Falcon Jet now benefits from an end-to-end digital process, with 3D design and prototyping, direct merging of data and digital cutting. The fully automated Versalis enables Dassault Falcon Jet to deliver within budget by cutting costs, improving productivity and minimizing waste. Because flexibility is even more important to the production of one-off custom interiors than to serial manufacturing, digitalization has enabled the company to both expedite operations and reinforce its reputation as a world-class aircraft manufacturer.
Posted October 10, 2017
Source: Lectra
