Airbus

Smart Workdeck for an aircraft galley

Description of the company

Airbus is a global pioneer in the aerospace industry, operating in the commercial aircraft, helicopters, defense and space sectors. The Company is a leader in designing, manufacturing and delivering aerospace products, services and solutions to customers on a worldwide scale. Hamburg, the headquarters of Airbus Commercial Aircraft in Germany and the largest Airbus site in Germany, employs over 15.000 people and plays a key role in the development and manufacturing of all Airbus aircraft.
In the engineering domain, key competences in Hamburg revolve mainly around the development of fuselage structure and the design, innovation and systems of the cabin. For all Airbus aircraft families the airline’s individual cabin definition is managed from Hamburg.

Situation

Today´s aircraft galleys have a workdeck for preparing meals and beverages, as well as for commissioning the galley and preparing the trolleys for service. The workdeck is mostly a surface (also possible to be extendable) that is used similarly as a table. Most of the work instructions for commissioning or for service preparation are done
previously through training, by experience, or based on written instructions.

Problem

Challenges:

• Space constraints (e.g., small galley working area, possibly more than 1 cabin crew in the galley)
• Time pressure (e.g., time defined/limited for inflight catering service depending on the mission)
• High variety of goods (e.g., meal/beverages variations according to classes, caterers, destinations)
• Different procedures (e.g., mission, airline, loading plans, class, cabin crew experience, passenger)
• Distributed information (e.g., post-it with trolley content)
• Ad-hoc changes (e.g., missing special meal, on board order, GAIN failure)

Facing the described galley commissioning process, an integrated galley solution that could provide assistance to the cabin crew could improve the process efficiency (e.g., less time for commissioning the galley, less unnecessary tasks) and provide better ergonomics (e.g., less searching for goods while reopening doors, or moving unnecessarily standard units); ultimately, reducing cabin crew fatigue and improving the process as a whole.

Aims of the project

The project shall provide design alternatives for the integration of control and monitoring into the workdeck to improve the preparation of meals and beverages, and the
commissioning process of the aircraft galley. Within, it shall be possible to highlight surfaces and provide interaction through buttons, real-time or on demand based on the current task.

Scopes

The following key aspects shall be presented as part of the concepts:

• Review on existing literature on galley layout
• Examination of design and ergonomic principles relevant to cabin crew workspaces
• Comparison of designs (manufacturability)
• Visualization of the concepts (e.g., 3D Model)
• Concept of operation

Target group (students)

Master´s Programs (6 participants - preferably with at least 2 different programs):

• Electrical & Mechanical Engineering,
• Informatics, Mechatronics
• Microelectronics and Microsystems
• Aeronautics
• Product Development, Materials and Production
• Materials Science
• International Management and Engineering

3D Modeling / Visualization
Product design methods
Process analysis and evaluation
Ergonomics methods

Dates
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