Bottom-Line Results from the Lean Initiative
Lean initiatives in the aerospace and defense sector are leading to shorter production time and decreased costs.
According to Brad Campling, program development manager for aerospace and defense for TechSolve, Inc., a lean optimization consulting firm headquartered in Cincinnati, OH, there has been a trend over past several years for original equipment manufacturers in aerospace and defense to work lean, using only what they need to consume and nothing more.
For example, OEMs are creating supplier partnerships and networks implementing lean manufacturing techniques, from value stream mapping to e-kanban. The lean initiatives being practiced in the aerospace and defense manufacturing sector translate are applicable to a gamut of issues in any sector, from shorter production time, delivery to market, and eliminating waste.
Continued Process Improvement
For example, Campling notes that TechSolve was contracted by the United
States Air Force to work with a manufacturer of mission-critical
munitions hardware. The supplier was having production problems and had
failed first article acceptance testing (FAAT) due to workmanship
defects. The instructions the assembly technicians were using were
engineering documents that contained limited black and white sketches
of the assemblies. Without specific visual instructions, the
manufacturer could not follow directions and there was no repeatable
quality.
TechSolve worked closely with the manufacturer's engineers and assembly technicians in a detailed lean two-month evaluation to establish and document the best practices, creating visual work instructions that included photographs and captions of each step in the assembly process. The immediate improvement in quality helped lead to a successful FAAT.
Continued process improvement is a key component of any lean manufacturing process. Critical aspects of observation, documentation, and quantification should not be dismissed or diminished.
Value Stream Mapping
Improved on-time delivery is another key lean manufacturing
consideration. Value stream mapping (VSM), also known as an end-to-end
system map, is a tool to provide a detailed overview of a process's
capabilities and shortcomings. During the future state development
stage, defining where you want to go, a Takt Time is established. Takt
Time is the target production rate that must be achieved in order to
satisfy customer demand. Once the Takt Time is established, all
processes in the value stream must be balanced to meet it. If processes
are operating with a cycle time greater than the Takt Time, the
operations must be broken apart or duplicate capacity should be added.
However, before capacity is added, efforts must be made to eliminate
waste that could be adding to the cycle time but provides no value to
the process.
Aerospace and defense firms often subcontract the actual manufacture of their designs to others. Design meetings are held between the aerospace and defense design teams, the suppliers, and the production manufacturers in a critical VSM process to determine how to cut costs of producing a part or optimize production time via design alterations. Campling recalls how one munitions company benefited from a VSM design meeting, "The simple design changes that came out of the VSM design meeting allowed lead time to be reduced from 30 days to five days, producing a shorter production time and delivery to market, as well as cutting cost of parts in half due to simple design changes. Lean will look at the spaces between processes and break it down to shorten time&changing routings."
Mark Adkins, president of Turnkey Marketing (Cleveland, OH) believes that VSM can lead to a speedier time to market. "We anticipate a 50 percent reduction in time to market by eliminating waste and performing more tasks in parallel."
Where Kanban Timing Fits In
When processes are set to respond to customer demand rates, the visual
signals that operate the kanban system will trigger production or
product release with minimal in-process inventory. The closer any
system is to operating in a single piece flow operation, the shorter
the lead time will be when customers, internal processes, and suppliers
are all linked via kanban.
It is important not to confuse MRP (materials resource planning) with kanban. The scheduling component of MRP (and ERP, enterprise resource planning) is not the discipline of a triggering signal for suppliers, internal processes, and customers. Some suggest that physical (card) kanban is best for internal operations, and e-kanban is best with customers and suppliers. This perspective is not widely held as most manufacturers are moving to 100 percent electronic kanban solutions.
Justin Diana, chief technology officer with Datacraft Solutions (Durham, NC) articulates the distinctions of e-Kanban. "Once the visibility of a manual Kanban system is in place, e-Kanban focuses on knowledge and availability as critical factors in the equation. With a centralized e-Kanban system, not only is information visible, but it's visible to everyone in the supply chain, whenever they need it, in a format that's consistent and reliable. When the players know what is needed, when it is needed, and the impact that it has if it's not obtained, then responsiveness is improved. In short, Kanban improves supplier lead times, while e-Kanban enforces those lead times and drastically improves customer satisfaction."
The goals and metrics of any organization, aerospace and defense, or otherwise, must first be clearly articulated so that when data are available to assess the efficacy of VSM or e-Kanban, the question can be answered: Were the target metrics achieved? As the creator of PEER (Process Evaluation Executive Review), Mike Ligudzinski, president and CEO of PRONTO North America (Eden Prairie, MN) notes that holding "upfront cross-functional meetings capture the values of lean manufacturing throughout the enterprise. This functionality is accomplished utilizing an innovative process modeling and automation toolset helping manufacturers and distributors realize continuous process improvement and profitability."
Thomas R. Cutler is the President and CEO of Fort Lauderdale, Fl-based TR Cutler, Inc., the largest manufacturing marketing firm worldwide( www.trcutlerinc.com.) A frequently published author within the manufacturing sector, Cutler is the founder of the Manufacturing Media Consortium of 2000 journalists writing about trends in manufacturing and is the lead spokesperson for the ETO Institute (www.etoinstitute.org).
