The aerospace industry must respond to its own technical, consumer and regulatory demands. Tightening deviations, often stemming from the tendency to use cheaper air or battery-powered basic clutch tools, can have implications on both safety and cost control. If tightening errors are missed, the cost of reworking can be tens of thousands of euros. And the use of more advanced tools can be hindered by their lack of ergonomics and stable wire connection in cramped, hard-to-reach parts of the aircraft.

But Atlas Copco’s Tensor IxB cordless tools are about to turn the tightening tool market upside down. “We saw several years ago that there was a need for increased flexibility” says Jonas Mann, Vice President R&D for tools and assembly systems. “It is labor-intensive to rebalance a line and move a controller box from one station to another. You must unscrew it from a rack, move it physically and draw new cables to make network drops and connect it to the system. You basically have to stop the line or incur the expense of doing it over a weekend. But with a Tensor IxB tool you can do it almost ‘on the fly.’”

“Tensor IxB is a range of tightening tools that fits really well with the smart factory concept,” says Tim Mann, Global Product Manager for the Tensor IxB Family (who is not related to Jonas). “We have made things much more flexible because we’ve done away with the controller box hardware and built the controller functionality into the tool itself. By having the tools directly integrated to their production system, manufacturers can now easily make production line changes and collect and report all the necessary data.”