After 20 months of construction and installation activities, MTU Aero Engines today inaugurated its new center of excellence for blisks at its premises in Munich. Numerous guests of honor from politics and industry had come to attend the ceremony, among them State Minister and Head of the Bavarian State Chancellery Thomas Kreuzer (Member of Bavaria's State Parliament), who lauded the company's strong commitment to keeping aviation business and jobs in Germany.

With a total work space of 10,000 square meters, the leading-edge blisk manufacturing system, combined with one of the world's most advanced machine pools, is accommodated in a high-technology, energy-efficient building. Once it is fully up and running, the hall will have 20 milling machines, seven combined turning and milling machines, and eight coordinate measuring machines; they will allow MTU to expand its production capacities from currently 600 to as many as 3,500 blisks a year by 2016. Some 200 employees will be working in Hall 077 at state-of-the-art workplaces. The investment into the innovative shop building, including its machinery, is worth around 65 million euros.

In the new manufacturing hall, one of the world's largest flexible systems for the production of high-pressure and intermediate-pressure compressor blisks has been set up. Blisks - blade integrated disks - are high-tech components where the disk and the blades form one single part; they find increasing use in modern engine compressors. MTU Aero Engines is among the world's leading blisk manufacturers. Once the production ramp-up is complete, numerous compressor stages for commercial and military engines - notably the fuel-thrifty, quieter PW1000G family of engines incorporating geared-turbofan technology, the PW800, and the TP400-D6 - will be produced in the new building.

“Through our participation in Pratt & Whitney's geared turbofan, we've opened the door for future success. It's this game-changing engine that prompted us to build this hall in the first place,” commented Egon Behle, MTU Aero Engines CEO, on the project. “To be able to meet the high demand for compressor blisks, we had to add new production capacities. This is why we decided to go ahead with the investments, incidentally MTU's most significant ones over the past few years, into this center of excellence for blisks.”

The production concept is based on optimized, automated process workflows and the latest in machinery and equipment. The core of the concept is a 96-meter-long main distribution system connected to a host computer capable of automatically controlling all processes at any time. In addition, every new component will be provided with a routing card and unique order number, plus an integral RFID chip. Using this order number combined with the data on the availability of fixtures, tools and computer-aided programs, the host computer will calculate the workloads of all the workstations in the production hall. The components are then supplied to the available machines through the main distribution system.

“Our new production for blisks is surely leading-edge manufacturing for engine components of this kind. We achieve our economic benefits, through numerous innovation, high level of automation as well as highly skilled and motivated employees. This marks our location in Munich and secures workforce in Germany,” explains Dr. Rainer Martens, Chief Operating Officer of Germany's leading engine manufacturer.

MTU Aero Engines' top priorities for the new building were energy efficiency and cost effectiveness, and this holds true of both the production concept and of the construction of the building. The shop features highly advanced air conditioning and well-water cooling technology, as well as energy-saving installations, such as a heat pump. Moreover, with the heat insulation and heat recovery systems installed, the company will save about two thirds on energy costs, compared with its older buildings.