About

 

Temple Allen Industries (TAI) designs and manufactures EMMA™ (Easily Manipulated Mechanical Arm), a 100% pneumatic mechanical arm used to deploy a variety of pneumatic tools. EMMA bears the weight of the tool, absorbs vibration, and applies contact force to the workpiece, thus eliminating many of the risks associated with manual processes while improving finish quality and consistency. The first EMMA was installed in 2004 at The Boeing Company’s Renton facility to perform surface preparation on 737NG rudders.

 

Through this first project with Boeing, TAI learned of the demand for an alternative to manual surface preparation in the aerospace industry. Since then, commercial and military aerospace customers (representing both manufacturing and maintenance applications), have approached TAI to implement the EMMA technology into their processes. Although these surface preparation applications vary in substrate and coating system, they share ergonomic, health & safety, finish quality, and process time requirements. Drawing on feedback gained from working with customers, TAI’s approach to problem solving evolves to provide versatile solutions featuring the EMMA core technology.

 

The core of the technology is the EMMA module (consisting of the Arm, Auto-Adjust, Actuation Package, and Joystick Box), and is the basis of all EMMA systems. A variety of configurations deploy the EMMA module to address different part geometries and a wide range of applications.

 

With a growing install base, TAI technology continually advances with the goal of EMMA becoming the indutry standard for surface preparation in the aerospace industry.