Carbon fibre composites manufacturer Quickstep collaborates with the world’s leading aerospace organizations to manufacture complex composite parts and assemblies for ‘build to print’ applications. By using the Program Excellence Industry Solution Experience on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, Quickstep managed to bring greater efficiencies to its engineering processes and ease compliance with the strictest industry standards.
With a focus on lean operations and continuous innovation, Quickstep needed a modern platform to bring greater efficiencies to its engineering processes and ease compliance with the strictest industry standards.
Using the Program Excellence Industry Solution Experience on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, Quickstep has moved from a paper-based, manual approach to automated workflows. All data and knowledge is stored centrally and the company follows set processes for reviews and approvals to ensure all quality and customer requirements are met.
Quickstep has gained a single source of truth across its business, ensuring all client demands are met at every stage, and all stakeholders are working to the latest revision. Ready access to critical information translates to significant time savings and productivity gains. The company now demonstrates control over all product data, guaranteeing data integrity and traceability, and is always prepared for internal and external audits.
Carbon fibre composites manufacturer Quickstep collaborates with the world’s leading aerospace organizations to manufacture complex composite parts and assemblies for ‘build to print’ applications. By using the Program Excellence Industry Solution Experience on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, Quickstep managed to bring greater efficiencies to its engineering processes and ease compliance with the strictest industry standards.
MEMKO Systems provides turnkey solutions designed to support businesses in their strategic direction. Supported by in-house quality systems and procedures, MEMKO Systems is skilled and experienced at implementing packaged solutions as well as bespoke development. The company’s services span multiple industries with a particular focus on the business processes covering design, digital mock-up, product development, virtual planning and simulation, and digital manufacturing
Over the years, Australian advanced composites manufacturer Quickstep has built on its global reputation for excellent delivery, quality, cost performance and innovation, and developed a range of technologies for application in the carbon fiber sector. Its latest innovation, Qure, promises huge commercial opportunity. The cutting-edge, patented process produces composite materials to the same output standard as traditional methods without the need for a slow, energy-intensive and expensive autoclave. Qure already has been used to produce the chassis for a lightweight X-ray machine and carbon fiber fenders for a European sports car manufacturer. Now, the company is adapting the process for aerospace applications.
To date, Quickstep is focused on build-to-print with defined products and processes, but in the future, it believes its proposed AeroQure solution could transform aerospace composites production cycle times. As well as targeting applications for aircraft OEMs, Quickstep believes its technology is an ideal production solution for drones and eVTOL (electric vertical takeoff and landing) aircraft, too. As Quickstep looks to continuously expand its business scope, it has made concerted efforts to future-proof its business through ongoing innovation and continuous modernization.
“While AeroQure may be one of the enablers of efficient manufacturing in the future, we need to ensure that we produce composites competitively now, and that we don’t cease to continuously improve,” said David Doral, CTO and head of engineering at Quickstep. “A lean culture is paramount, further enhanced with technology and innovation to enable change.”
In line with this vision, the company strives for a more digitalized and paperless workplace and is turning to industry-leading technology solutions like the 3DEXPERIENCE® platform to streamline its engineering and production processes and ease compliance with the strictest industry standards.
We have ambitious growth plans. The platform will also help us to be more efficient and profitable
Before Quickstep adopted the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, most of its engineering activities and workflows were either paperbased, or used a document and file-based structure.
“There were low efficiencies associated with this approach, having to constantly update database documents,” Doral said. “It was really hard to control, and storing and maintaining critical data with these tools was prone to error. We needed to come up with something better that was more in line with aerospace and other industry standards, and also the supply chain in which we compete.”
Quickstep expected that a platform-based approach would remove many of the manual processes across its business and support its engineers to work more efficiently.
“Our previous folder structure-based system relied on everyone having the correct permissions, and the manual maintenance associated with that was considerable,” said Kieren Dale, team lead for production engineering at Quickstep. “We needed someone to physically move the files and release master documents. You had to go through an approval process before you could even get access to a document. Now in the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, we’ve automated the routing approvals with role-based access to those master documents, ready to go.”
Quickstep examined its existing business processes and workflows and considered how they could be adapted and improved to get the most from the 3DEXPERIENCE platform. For this, the company worked with Dassault Systèmes’ Australian partner and aerospace industry specialist MEMKO Systems.
“In terms of managing and releasing engineering data, we looked at our workflows and approval processes and explored how we could streamline them, knowing that we had a platform that would then enable us to be more efficient,” Dale said. “The team at MEMKO tailored the platform’s functionality to our needs. The ongoing support they’ve provided has been great. It’s been a really smooth transition to our new setup.”
Quickstep and MEMKO worked together on the implementation over a period of several months, gradually moving all data and workloads to the platform.
“MEMKO knew exactly what we needed to do, as they are not only familiar with the platform, but also with our exact business needs,” said Kamil Abdi, PLM administration engineer at Quickstep. “They helped us with how we manage our signature approval routes and got us closest to what we needed from the platform for our business.”
With automated workflows and a centralized data repository, Quickstep is removing paper-based processes across its business and bringing its digitalized vision to life.
“We’ve been able to realign, rationalize and improve our workflows with ENOVIA on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform,” Dale said. “This was the first stepping stone to getting all our data in a centralized place and pivoting towards automated workflows and digital signoffs. It’s undoubtedly been the biggest business contribution of the platform so far.”