Success Story

Snecma and Starrag

a succesful team thanks to AMDEC

Snecma (Safran) was founded in 1945 and made up of various aircraft engine manufacturers, the individual histories of which go back as far as 1905.

Snecma with GE, through CFM International*, is heavily involved in the development of the best-selling family of CFM56 turbofans for civil engines. In addition, Snecma develops today LEAP, a new family of engines that will power future generation single-aisle airliners: Airbus A320neo, Boeing 737 MAX and Comac C919.
The largest volume is made up by the CFM56: 24,200 units have already been delivered. An aircraft equipped with these engines takes off somewhere in the world every 2.5 seconds.
Snecma is also a partner on GE’s large turbofans, the CF6, GE90 and GP7200. Snecma is addressing the regional aviation segment with the SaM146, developed jointly with Russian counterpart NPO Saturn. Snecma is also aiming at the business aviation market with the new Silvercrest engine.  The company also makes world-class military aircraft engines which power 20 different types of military aircraft in 40 countries.

Starrag began to deliver copy milling machines for blade manufacture to Snecma in the 1960s. Today at SNECMA in Evry, there are eight 5-axis machining centres for blisk manufacture (ZT-800, STC 800, STC 1000), with two further STC 800s on order. In addition, there is an HEC 800 for housing manufacture in the factory. Snecma is the largest customer worldwide for the manufacture of blisks.
Machining of titanium blisks requires a strong, very precise and yet dynamic machine – which our machines meet. If the machine stops with the tool still cutting during dressing, the component is very probably irreparably damaged.
In the Vernon factory there is a ZS-500, which is used to produce parts for the main engine of Ariane 5 from difficult to cut materials. 

Success with the customer is not just based on a good relationship at sales level but just as much on good, long-term after-sales service. To meet the high demands of Snecma in relation to production reliability and availability, a joint maintenance concept was developed on a partnership basis in 2012. The French AMDEC maintenance concept (Analyse des modes de défaillance, de leurs effets et de leur criticité) is based on the findings of an FMEA analysis (Failure Mode and Effects). During the analysis, every component of the machine is analysed with regard to the following points:

  • How high is the risk of failure?
  • How high is the probability of failure?
  • What happens if the part fails?
  • How long is the repair period?
  • etc.

The maintenance concept is supported by pro-active condition-based monitoring. In this analysis, features of the machine are periodically measured and compared with the condition as new. As soon as the trend reveals deviations, it is possible to replace the component before failure. All these measures are aimed at minimising machine failures.

snecma

Interview with Mr Blaes (responsible for strategic maintenance at Snecma)

More information about Snecma and AMDEC

Mr Blaes, by what criteria do you select strategically important production machines?
In the last few years, the number of serious competitors for simultaneous 5-axis milling has increased significantly. Technical distinctive features take a back seat somewhat in the procurement of new machines. Instead, a pro-active maintenance strategy and fast service are becoming increasingly important.

Why has the development of such a maintenance strategy become so important to Snecma?
The success of Snecma products makes increasingly higher demands on the availability of the existing means of production. Round-the-clock production is a matter of course for us. Nobody can afford long downtimes, especially where the production of highly complex and very expensive components is concerned.

What do you expect from the AMDEC 3-year service agreement?
We have to successfully progress from reactive to pro-active maintenance, i.e. we cannot allow ourselves to wait until the machine is at a standstill and then think about how to repair it. We want to be able to predict and plan all repairs.

How do you see the future importance of AMDEC in Snecma?
In future, AMDEC will in future be an important criterion in Snecma when selecting suppliers. Suppliers who supply an inadequate or no AMDEC will not be considered in future.

Snecma AMDEC consists of: Denny Merz, Gerd Halwass, Lucille Hopfmann, Martin Finkeldei and Daniel Blaes (Snecma).
D. Blaes is responsible for strategic maintenance at Snecma.
D. Merz: Starrag AMDEC operations manager at Snecma.
L. Hopfmann is responsible for Starrag AMDEC service documentation.
G. Hallwas: Starrag service engineer on side.
M. Finkeldei: Head of Customer Service Starrag.
C. Guerin: maintenance Snecma.

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