# Towards reconfigurability in aerospace manufacturing systems

Paula Metzker Soares, Valeria Borodin, Audrey Cerqueus

► To cite this version:

Paula Metzker Soares, Valeria Borodin, Audrey Cerqueus. Towards reconfigurability in aerospace manufacturing systems. ROADEF 2026, Université de Tours [UT], Feb 2026, Tours, France. hal-05534861

HAL Id: hal-05534861

https://hal.science/hal-05534861v1

Submitted on 3 Mar 2026

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access
archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci-
entific research documents, whether they are pub-
lished or not. The documents may come from
teaching and research institutions in France or
abroad, or from public or private research centers.

L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est
destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents
scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non,
émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de
recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires
publics ou privés.

<figure><img src="image_1.png" /></figure>

Distributed under a Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 - Attribution - International License
# Towards reconfigurability in aerospace manufacturing systems

Paula Metzker-Soares¹, Valeria Borodin¹, Audrey Cerqueus¹

IMT Atlantique, LS2N-CNRS, Nantes, FRANCE

{paula.metzker-soares, valeria.borodin, audrey.cerqueus}@imt-atlantique.fr

**Keywords: Aerospace sector, reconfigurable manufacturing system**

## 1 Context and Motivation

Rapid market changes, increasing product customization, rigid quality requirements, variable lot sizes, and shortening product life cycles have motivated manufacturers to design production systems that can adapt quickly and cost-effectively. Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems (RMSs) have emerged as a response to this need, providing modularity, scalability, convertibility, customization and the capacity to adjust system functionality and production rate [2].

Aerospace manufacturing can particularly benefit from RMS principles because it requires a high product variety (with diverse degree of customization), operates within dynamic production environments, must meet strict and highly regulated quality standards, and needs to efficiently manage mixed-product assembly [1]. As a result, RMS principles are highly relevant to the design of systems capable of accommodating product changes, managing variable lot sizes, and reusing high-value industrial assets over long product life cycles.

## 2 Application of RMS Principles in Aerospace Assembly

RMS specifically targets challenges associated with low production rates, high-value resources, and frequent introduction of product variants [1], specific to aerospace manufacturing. These are classical challenges that can be systematically addressed through three key RMS dimensions [3]: **reconfigurable cost**, including the investment required to adapt resources, product or assembly configuration over the lifecycle of a system; **reconfigurable time**, consisting on the time needed to adjust assembly sequences, modify tooling, train workforce, reprogram piece of equipment or introduce a new product or variant to the production configuration; and finally, the **ramp-up performance** that gives the ability to scale production efficiently, leveraging modular stations, flexible logistics, lean production, and optimized workforce.

High-value industrial resources (e.g., precision tooling, jigs and fixtures, automated stations, and logistics assets) constitute up to 70% of total development costs in the aerospace industry [1]. RMS enables these assets to be designed as reconfigurable and reusable modules, thereby reducing reconfigurable costs. This is particularly crucial given the long product lifecycle in aerospace, which requires asset usability across multiple products [3].

RMSs support the concurrent development of product designs, assembly process plans, and resource definitions through collaborative engineering [1]. As a result, RMSs minimize reconfigurable time, facilitating adjustments to assembly sequences, tooling, and automation in response to long- and mid-term product changes, without disrupting production flow yet ensuring the absorption of changes in product mix or takt time without compromising targets [3].

The systematic RMS development methodology, including identification of reconfigurability needs, concept design, detailed system development, and implementation, aligns closely with aerospace assembly requirements. Optimized decisions impact both reconfigurable cost and time, while enabling real-time monitoring during ramp-up and full-rate production. RMS-based assembly systems can undergo planned or feasible reconfiguration with minimal downtime and predictable performance impacts, a capability critical to the aerospace industry.
# 3 Proposed approach

This work adopts the RMS principles and applies them in aerospace assembly systems. We assume that: (i) Multiple product variants share a set of common tasks; (ii) Dedicated yet reconfigurable tooling and equipment are required; and (iii) Workforce allocation is a major driver of system flexibility. These assumptions reflect real industrial conditions, in which assembly stations, tooling, and resources must be reconfigured to meet increased throughput while upholding strict quality requirements within the aerospace sector. Our approach seeks to define configurations and reconfiguration paths compliant with aerospace assembly rules.

We propose a mathematical framework for designing and evaluating RMS-enabled aerospace assembly lines. The **long-term level** defines the logical structure of the production system, including the selection of equipment, tooling, workforce skills, and the generation of baseline configurations and feasible reconfiguration paths. These decisions support decision-makers in planning an optimized supply-chain network. The **mid-term level** focuses on defining the optimal configuration to adopt under specific product-mix, available resource or demand scenarios, including high-level task allocation, resource distribution, and workforce scheduling.

The constraint set is similarly formalized. At the long-term level, constraints determine the line-balancing and sequencing requirements for all equipment, tooling, product flows, and workforce resources across the feasible and possible set of configurations. At the tactical level, line-rebalancing and resource-allocation constraints are introduced to guarantee demand fulfillment while maintaining an optimized and operational system.

Our framework targets lower reconfigurable cost, reduced reconfigurable time, and improved ramp-up performance for aerospace assembly systems. Since the aerospace industry pursues more flexible industrial operations and accelerated development cycles [1], our RMS-enabled assembly line emerges as a key enabler of operational efficiency and ramp-up readiness. Numerical experiments based on adapted literature instances are currently under development. The full results, including sensitivity analyses, will be presented during the conference.

# Acknowledgements

The present work was conducted and financially supported within the framework of the projects ReconfiDurable and ACCURATE. ReconfiDurable is supported by the French National Research Agency under grant agreement No. ANR-21-CE10-0019. ACCURATE (Achieving Resilience through Manufacturing as a Service, Digital Twins and Ecosystems) is supported by the European Union's Horizon Europe research and innovation program under grant agreement No. 101138269, HORIZON-CL4-2023-TWIN-TRANSITION-01-07. However, the views and opinions expressed are those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HADEA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

# References

[1] Rebeca Arista, Fernando Mas, Domingo Morales-Palma, and Carpoforo Vallellano. Industrial resources in the design of reconfigurable manufacturing systems for aerospace: A systematic literature review. *Computers in Industry*, 142:103719, 2022.

[2] Yoram Koren, Xi Gu, and Weihong Guo. Reconfigurable manufacturing systems: Principles, design, and future trends. *Frontiers of Mechanical Engineering*, 13:121-136, 2018.

[3] Alessia Napoleone, Ann-Louise Andersen, Thomas Ditlev Brunoe, and Kjeld Nielsen. Towards human-centric reconfigurable manufacturing systems: Literature review of reconfigurability enablers for reduced reconfiguration effort and classification frameworks. *Journal of Manufacturing Systems*, 67:23-34, 2023.