Web Industries, industry leader in formatting prepreg composites for aerostructure fabrication, has announced infrastructure additions and storage expansion at its plant outside of Atlanta, Georgia. These additions are the first part of a $12 million, three-year infrastructure investment plan that will increase efficiency and capacity at Web Atlanta.
The additions are meant to position the facility to service a projected five-fold growth in aerospace composite formatting business over the next decade.Web Industries, industry leader in formatting prepreg composites for aerostructure fabrication, has announced infrastructure additions and storage expansion at its plant outside of Atlanta, Georgia. These additions are the first part of a $12 million, three-year infrastructure investment plan that will increase efficiency and capacity at Web Atlanta.#
The largest and most advanced composites formatting facility in the world, Web Atlanta produces precision composite slit tape and ply kits and provides vendor managed inventory services to the aerospace industry’s leading manufacturers and part fabricators.
As the aerospace industry searches for best-practice solutions to ramping up production rates, companies are discovering the advantages of outsourcing necessary but non-value add secondary manufacturing operations like optimised composite formatting for downstream manufacturing as well as vendor managed inventory services like raw material ordering and management, inventory tracking, freezer storage, quality assurance, and just-in-time fulfillment. Contracting out these solutions allows companies to focus on improving and innovating their core competencies, simplifies their raw material costs, and lowers risk within their supply chain.
To meet growing demand for Web’s PrecisionSlit composite slit tape, the company has developed new processes that enable the production of longer slit tape spools with improved slit tape edges and an increased usable life span, all of which offer aerospace companies better manufacturing production rates. Taking place in a set of linked climate-controlled rooms, these new processes quickly thaw frozen raw composite material parent rolls, prep them for formatting in an ISO 8 clean room environment, and then hold the prepped material in a temperature-controlled “suspended animation” until slitting can occur.
To support the rapidly-growing base of aerospace fabricators based in the southeastern US that utilise hand lay-up processes, Web Atlanta is expanding its automated prepreg cutting and ply kitting operations. Four additional cutting tables will join Web’s existing assets in a customised environment optimised for FOD-free production and offering the region’s aerospace, defence, and aviation industries a centrally-located, AS9100C certified supplier of custom-tailored composite ply kits.
To handle the projected increase in raw and formatted composites volumes, Web Atlanta has built a new cold storage freezer.. This also expands the volume of vendor managed inventory services that Web can offer, giving innovative aerospace fabricators greater options to contract out their raw material procurement and storage, inventory lot tracking, quality assurance systems, customised ply kit or slit tape formatting, fulfillment, and finished goods safety stock. For Web’s clients, this can eliminate capital investment in specialised non-core equipment, employee training, and material support infrastructures, allowing fabricators to focus on meeting the needs of their growing markets.
“Every sector of the commercial aerospace industry is looking to increase build rates and fulfill outstanding orders. Web’s continued investment in the expansion of our Atlanta facility and the ongoing development of new formatting technologies will allow our company to stay ahead of demand for composite slit tape and ply kits and will reinforce our position within the industry as the trusted source for formatted composites at commercial-scale volumes in support of major aerospace development programmes,” said Mark Pihl, Web’s president and COO.
The birthplace of aerospace-grade prepreg composite slit tape, the Web Atlanta facility was purpose-built in 2005 to be the company’s centre of excellence for advanced composites. (SV)
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