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Industry Context
Aerospace Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul (MRO) companies face one of the most extreme forms of high-mix, high-variability manufacturing. Every aircraft component—engine housings, landing gear brackets, turbine blades, composite panels—arrives with different levels of wear, corrosion, and dimensional deviation. Sandblasting is one of the most critical yet time-consuming stages, requiring precise coverage, controlled dwell times, and consistent surface finish quality.
Yet automation has historically been difficult:
- Every new part requires manual robot programming, usually taking 3–5 days before production can begin.
- Even within the same part family, irregular wear or geometry differences force 2–3 hours of manual touch-ups per piece.
- Downtime for an MRO shop—especially one servicing engines or structural components—can exceed $1,000–$10,000 per hour, making delays extremely costly.
As airlines demand faster turnaround and shops struggle with workforce shortages, traditional robotic solutions cannot keep up with the constant changeover.
The Challenge: High-Mix, High-Variability Sandblasting
A global aerospace MRO provider needed to automate sandblasting for a wide range of aluminum and titanium components. Their workflow suffered from:
1. Extreme Part Variation
Corroded or repaired surfaces differ from CAD models, making offline programming inaccurate.
2. High Changeover Frequency
Dozens of different parts are processed each week—sometimes several per day—making conventional programming impractical.
3. Skilled Labor Shortage
Experienced sanding and blasting technicians are aging out, and robot programmers are expensive to hire.
4. Lost Production Time
Robots stood idle while programmers manually adjusted toolpaths, resulting in thousands of dollars in downtime per shift.
The company needed a solution that could program itself, adapt to every part automatically, and eliminate case-by-case human intervention.
The Augmentus Solution
Using Augmentus’ no-code, AI-powered robotic automation platform, the aerospace MRO moved from manual programming to full autonomous part handling and sandblasting.
1. No-Code Programming — From 3–5 Days to Under 30 Minutes
Instead of hand-coding robot paths for each new aircraft component, operators simply scan the part using Augmentus’ vision system.
Augmentus automatically:
- Reconstructs the 3D geometry
- Generates collision-free sandblasting toolpath.
- Optimizes angle, distance, and dwell time
- Sends the program to the robot — with zero code required
Setup time dropped by 95%, enabling same-day onboarding of new parts.
2. Adaptive Path Planning for Inconsistent MRO Parts
Because used aircraft components rarely match their original specifications, Augmentus’ adaptive scanning automatically detects:
- Surface erosion
- Weld patches or repairs
- Dimensional drift
- Position and fixturing variations
The system recalculates robot toolpaths per part in seconds, eliminating 2–3 hours of manual touch-ups previously required.
3. Autonomous Production with Guaranteed Uptime
For high-variability operations like MRO, Augmentus ensures robots run continuously even when parts differ widely.
This directly reduces:
- Unplanned downtime (previously costing $10k+/hr for some customers)
- Manual supervision
- Rework due to inconsistent blasting quality
The result is consistent aerospace-grade finishes without constant operator intervention.
4. Clear ROI with Scalable Deployment
Aerospace MROs benefit from both Augmentus value-capture models:
High-Mix ROI
- Eliminates the need for full-time robot programmers (saving $70k–$120k/year per cell).
- Reduces new part onboarding time from days to minutes.
High-Variability ROI
- Avoids costly blasting-cell downtime.
- Guarantees throughput even when every component is unique.
Impact Summary
| Metric | Before Augmentus | After Augmentus |
|---|---|---|
| New part programming time | 3–5 days | < 30 minutes |
| Touch-ups per part | 2–3 hours | 0 hours |
| Downtime per SKU change | High, often thousands per hour | Near-zero |
| Labor requirement | Skilled robot programmer needed | No-code operator can run entire process |
| Scrap/Rework | Frequent | Minimal & consistent surface finish |
Conclusion
For aerospace MRO companies facing pressure to increase throughput, handle rising part diversity, and maintain quality standards, Augmentus enables a shift from manual, labor-intensive workflows to fully autonomous robotic sandblasting.
Augmentus’ AI-driven platform empowers robots to enter production immediately, without manual programming or part-to-part adjustments—unlocking true high-mix, high-variability automation for the first time in aerospace maintenance.
