The Boeing Company

Merrill Andrew Christianson

Horace E Hill

Daniel L Nydegger

Daniel Ashley Hippe

Karapurath Ramachandran

Garth W Broadrick

Jagdish C Kalyan

Thomas Q Anderson

Arthur T Hughes

Robert C Platt

A workcell for making parts in a vertical orientation from rigid sheet material capable of self-support on edge includes a plurality of CNC machines for performing machining operations on said sheet material in a vertical orientation. The CNC machines receive machine control data from a cell controller which, in turn, receives nest order packages from a factory system. The parts data from which the factory system constructs the nest order packages comes from the original engineering parts definition in a central data storage system which is the ultimate parts design authority of the assembly for which the parts are to be made. The rigid sheet material is transferred in a vertical orientation to and between the CNC machines in at least one automated handling cart. The cart has a transfer mechanism for transferring sheets of the rigid sheet material on edge between the cart and the CNC machines. A motive mechanism is provided for driving the cart between the CNC machines under control of the cell controller, and for stopping the cart with its transfer mechanism in registry with the CNC machines.

Automated floor panel workcell

A housing to fit over a drill contains a pair of sleeves with facing inclined surfaces that approach each other to force a washer located between the surfaces into an inclined position to lock onto the drill. A spring located on each side of the washer extends to the adjacent sleeve.

Drill stop

Growing community of inventors

Puyallup, WA, United States of America

Merrill Andrew Christianson