Drill & Fasten
Adaptive control of drilling, countersinking and rivet/bolt installation.
One cell, one factory, or every site you build airframes in
The same platform, deployed at three scopes. Land where the return is provable, expand as autonomy is earned, standardise when the program demands it.
| Deployment scope | Stations covered |
|---|---|
| Cell | 1 |
| Factory | 46 |
| Enterprise | 184 |
Rivetira Cell
One assembly cell or station, one workflow, one agent. The wedge that proves the return before anyone signs a factory commitment.
- Pick your wedge: drilling and fastening control, metrology and predictive shimming, or inspection AI
- Factory edge runtime sized for one cell, installed alongside the existing machine controller
- Full hole, countersink, fastener, gap and FOD sensing on that station
- Dashboard, alerting and write-back into the machine and the MES
- Assurance-grade audit log from day one, even in shadow mode
$16,000 per assembly cell or station, per month. Typical payback 2–4 months.
| Week since install | Cumulative value ($k) | Cumulative cost ($k) |
|---|---|---|
| Wk 0 | $0k | $0k |
| Wk 4 | $41k | $15k |
| Wk 8 | $128k | $30k |
| Wk 12 | $264k | $45k |
| Wk 16 | $438k | $59k |
| Wk 20 | $651k | $74k |
| Wk 24 | $902k | $89k |
Rivetira Factory
The whole loop across the plant: all seven agents, the as-built twin, line balancing and robotic handling — one record for every airframe that leaves the building.
- All seven agents across every station in the factory
- As-built assembly digital twin: hit fit, quality and takt before the join
- Moving- and pulse-line station balancing with takt-breach prediction
- Robotic large-structure handling supervision across crawlers, AGVs and cranes
- Quality, NCR and airworthiness traceability with sub-90-second audit export
- 99.9% uptime SLA and managed edge fleet
$100,000 per month. Typical scope 30–60 stations.
| Month since go-live | Closed loop | Supervised | Advisory | Shadow | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month 1 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 40 | 46 |
| Month 3 | 4 | 8 | 18 | 16 | 46 |
| Month 6 | 14 | 16 | 12 | 4 | 46 |
| Month 9 | 26 | 14 | 5 | 1 | 46 |
| Month 12 | 34 | 8 | 3 | 1 | 46 |
Rivetira Enterprise
For aircraft OEMs and tier-1 aerostructures suppliers standardising assembly across every site and every program.
- Multi-site deployment with a central model registry and per-site promotion gates
- Custom program, structure, material and tolerance models
- Managed factory edge fleet, including air-gapped sites
- ITAR and export-controlled program support with US-person access controls
- Outcome-based commercial components on rate, rework, shim time and right-first-time
- Named assembly-autonomy engineering team and joint roadmap
Custom pricing. Typical land $800k–$10M ACV.
| Station | Drill/fasten | Inspect | Align/shim | Seal/join | Line/takt |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Everett, WA | 98.9% | 99.2% | 98.4% | 98.1% | 96.8% |
| Charleston, SC | 98.2% | 98.8% | 97.6% | 97.4% | 95.9% |
| Wichita, KS | 99.1% | 99.0% | 98.9% | 98.2% | 97.2% |
| Queretaro, MX | 96.4% | 97.8% | 96.1% | 96.6% | 94.1% |
What is included at each scope
| Capability | Cell | Factory | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drilling & fastening control | One workflow | All stations | All sites |
| Hole, fastener, gap & FOD inspection | One workflow | All stations | All sites |
| Metrology alignment & predictive shimming | One workflow | Included | Included |
| Sealant & join sequencing | — | Included | Included |
| Line balancing & takt optimisation | — | Included | Included |
| Robotic large-structure handling | — | Included | Included |
| As-built assembly digital twin | Read-only | Full | Full, multi-program |
| Custom program & tolerance models | — | Standard library | Custom |
| Edge fleet management | Single node | Factory fleet | Multi-site fleet |
| Air-gapped / ITAR deployment | On request | Available | Standard |
| Uptime SLA | Best effort | 99.9% | Custom |
| Outcome-based pricing components | — | Available | Standard |
Every product runs the same seven agents
Each agent owns one part of the structural build. They share one perception layer, one as-built twin and one conformance record, so a decision made at the drill is visible at the join.
Hole & Fastener Inspection
Vision + in-process metrology sensing of hole, countersink, fastener, gap and FOD.
Align & Shim
Metrology-assisted alignment and predictive shimming that removes hand-fit loops.
Seal & Join
Sealant application control and fuselage / wing-body join sequencing.
Line & Takt
Moving- and pulse-line station balancing, takt optimisation and travelled-work control.
Robot & Handling
Crawlers, AGVs, positioners and cranes moving and holding large structures.
Quality & Conformance
Right-first-time, non-conformance, rework and full airworthiness traceability.
Hit the fit before the join
Every airframe diverges from CAD the moment the first hole is drilled. The as-built twin models that divergence — fit, gap, shim, drilling and structural conformance — and simulates the join before a single fastener is installed.
- Simulates fit, gap field and shim geometry against the real as-built structure, not the as-designed model
- Gates every autonomy promotion: an agent only takes a step in the plant after it takes it in the twin
- Predicts tolerance stack-up across the whole join sequence, not point by point
- Replays any historical join for root-cause analysis and airworthiness investigation
| Structure | Twin prediction | Measured as-built |
|---|---|---|
| Section 41 | 0.31 mm | 0.34 mm |
| Section 43 | 0.44 mm | 0.41 mm |
| Section 44 | 0.28 mm | 0.30 mm |
| Wing box L | 0.52 mm | 0.55 mm |
| Wing box R | 0.49 mm | 0.47 mm |
| Empennage | 0.22 mm | 0.24 mm |
Where the money actually comes back
Rivetira is priced on the metric it moves. This is the value stack from a representative 14-station wing-box deployment.
| Value source | Annualised value (USD) |
|---|---|
| Shim labour removed | $4.9M |
| Rework hours avoided | $3.6M |
| Rate capacity unlocked | $3.1M |
| Scrap & escapes avoided | $2.2M |
| Overtime reduction | $1.4M |
| Inspection labour | $0.9M |
Annualised value
$16.1M
Platform cost
$2.7M
Payback period
2.4 mo
Net revenue retention
136%
▲ +36% increase
Shadow first. Autonomy is earned, not switched on.
Every agent starts by watching. It is promoted only when its measured accuracy clears the mechanic-plus-metrology baseline and the twin agrees.
-
Weeks 1–4
Shadow
Agent observes the station, predicts every outcome, actuates nothing. Accuracy measured against what the mechanics actually do.
-
Weeks 4–10
Advisory
Agent recommends feed, shim geometry and sequence. A human accepts or rejects; every rejection becomes training data.
-
Weeks 10–20
Supervised
Agent actuates with a human in the loop and a live fail-safe stop. Airworthiness-critical dispositions still require sign-off.
-
Week 20+
Closed loop
Agent runs the step. Humans handle exceptions and the twin gates any change to the control policy.
| Week | Agent accuracy | Mechanic + metrology baseline |
|---|---|---|
| Wk 2 | 88.2% | 94.1% |
| Wk 4 | 91.4% | 94.0% |
| Wk 6 | 93.6% | 94.2% |
| Wk 8 | 95.2% | 94.1% |
| Wk 10 | 96.4% | 94.3% |
| Wk 12 | 97.1% | 94.2% |
| Wk 16 | 97.8% | 94.1% |
| Wk 20 | 98.3% | 94.2% |
| Wk 24 | 98.6% | 94.3% |
Reads and writes back to the machines you already own
Rivetira is not a rip-and-replace. It connects to the drilling machines, crawlers, trackers, shim cells, sealant robots and MES already on your floor over APIs and OT protocols.
Drilling & fastening
- Flex-track crawlers
- Gantry drilling machines
- C-frame riveters
- Automated fastening cells
- Hand-fed ADUs
Metrology
- Laser trackers
- Photogrammetry rigs
- Structured-light scanners
- iGPS / indoor GPS
- Articulated arm CMMs
Shimming & sealing
- 5-axis shim machining
- Liquid shim dispense
- Sealant robots
- Cure monitoring
- Bead inspection
Factory systems
- Assembly MES
- PLM / as-designed models
- ERP work orders
- Quality / NCR systems
- Historians & OPC UA
OPC UA, MTConnect, MQTT, ROS 2, REST and file-drop connectors. Read-only shadow mode first; write-back enabled only after twin validation.
What changes on the floor
Plant directors, liaison engineers and airworthiness leads on what autonomy did to their numbers.
“We stopped arguing about whether the gap was 0.4 or 0.6 millimetres. The twin predicted it, the shim came off the machine right, and the join closed in one pass.”
−64% shim hours per join
“The rate ramp was going to cost us four more positions. Instead the line rebalanced itself every shift and we found the capacity inside the stations we already had.”
+38% delivered rate
“Every hole is now inspected, not one in four. My airworthiness record writes itself, and I can hand an auditor a complete trace in ninety seconds.”
100% inspection coverage
Questions engineers actually ask
Anything else goes to the people who build it. Ask an assembly engineer or read the full FAQ.
Yes. Cell subscriptions convert into Factory at any point, with the accrued term credited. Expansion is the intended path — most design partners reach Factory scope within nine to fifteen months.
Cell is twelve months. Factory is typically twenty-four with an annual prepay discount of 15–20%. Enterprise agreements are multi-year with usage ramps.
A factory edge node per cell or per line, plus any sensing not already installed — typically cameras and in-process metrology. Existing trackers, crawlers, drills and shim cells are reused. The line assessment specifies exactly what is required.
A Rivetira deployment engineer works on site with your manufacturing engineering team, or with one of our integration partners. First shadow data typically lands within two weeks of the edge node arriving.
Pick the scope that matches your risk appetite
A line assessment maps one station, quantifies the rework, shim and rate opportunity, and returns a modelled ROI in three weeks. No production disruption.