Preliminary Work toward Techno-Economic Modeling of English Wheel-Based Sheet Metal Manufacturing

The English wheel is a craft-based sheet-metal forming process widely used to produce complex curved panels for automotive and aerospace applications. However, the process is timely and requires highly skilled craftsmen, which limits scalability and motivates the development of automated approaches. Despite its potential advantages, the economic performance of English Wheel forming has not been systematically evaluated. This study presents preliminary work toward developing models for techno-economic analysis (TEA) of manual and robotic English wheel forming at laboratory and industrial scales, using a front car fender as a case study. The results indicate that automated robotic forming can reduce manufacturing costs, with estimated reductions of 40% and 50% at the laboratory and industrial scales, respectively. Labor was identified as the dominant cost driver, followed by materials and maintenance. The TEA results suggest that robotic English Wheel forming has strong potential for automated, low-volume sheet metal manufacturing in terms of manufacturing cost. The analysis also provides an initial framework for developing more rigorous TEA models for incremental sheet-metal forming processes.