• Goods receiving and low rated inspection
• General warehouse operations

• Kitting operations for delivery to lineside on JIT basis
• Lineside delivery aligned to production “Takt” time
• Productivity improved through:
• Implementation of Lean Principles and developing Unipart’s culture of continuous improvement
• Improving operational control through introduction of standard operating procedures, visual controls and work-load planning
• Progressive synchronisation of extended supply chain activities.
• Supplier capability assessments and improvement programmes.
• Airbus manufacturing project planning and support
• Joint accreditation and best practice sharing of operations managed to Airbus and Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) Standards

Operational Data:

• Operational facility approx 80,000 sq ft
• >25,000 lines processed weekly
• Approx 14,000 SKU’s
• 300+ kit configurations
• 170+ staff
• Recycling operations – slave fasteners
• 24-7-365 operational capability
• Local staff recruitment and specialist aerospace training / accreditation
• Benefits Realised:
• Working in close partnership with Airbus, Unipart Logistics has been successful in delivering significant benefits:
• Reduction in operational headcount activity allowing for reallocation of staff

Source: Unipart Logistics

In my opinion, one of the most comfortable panes.

The Airbus A340-600 is the largest of the Airbus jetliners and is a super-stretched version of the A340 family of aircraft. One of the largest commercial aircraft in the world, the A340-600 provides a passenger capacity of 380 and a range of 13,900km.

Watch this 7 minute video showing the end-to-end production assembly;

airbus a340 600 thai airways

Building an Airbus A340-600 in 346 seconds

More information

The A340-600 inaugural flight took place on 23 April 2001 and the aircraft was awarded type certification in June 2002. The aircraft entered service with Virgin Atlantic Airways (launch customer with 20 aircraft on order) in August 2002 when it took its first commercial flight from London Heathrow to JFK New York.

Other customers include: Air Canada (3), Cathay Pacific (3), China Eastern (3), Emirates (18), Etihad Airways of UAE (4), Iberia (11), International Lease Finance (14), Lufthansa (17), Qatar Airways (4), South African Airways (6) and Thai Airways (6).

In December 2006, Airbus delivered the first VIP version of the A340-600 to SAAD Air of Saudi Arabia. The VIP version seats about 80 passengers.

The ultra long-range A340-500, which made its first flight in February 2002, is 6.5m shorter and is capable of carrying 313 passengers with a range of 15,750km. The aircraft received European certification in December 2002 and entered service with launch customer Emirates in November 2003.

Emirates has ordered ten aircraft. It has also been ordered by Air Canada (two), Etihad Airways (four), Qatar Airways (one), Singapore Airlines (five) and Thai Airways (four). In February 2004, a Singapore Airlines A340-500 made the longest non-stop commercial flight in aviation history – flying 14,093km (7,609nm) from Singapore to Los Angeles in 14 hours 42 minutes.

A total of 145 orders have been received for the long-range A340-500/600 family – 105 (79 delivered) for the A340-600 and 38 (26 delivered) for the A340-500.

A new variant of the A340-600 made a maiden flight in November 2005. It is equipped with upgraded Rolls-Royce Trent 500 engines and uses construction techniques developed for the A380, such as laser beam welding. Its range is extended to 14,600km. The upgraded aircraft was certified by EASA (European Aviation and Safety Agency) in April 2006 and delivered to launch customer. Qatar Airways shortly after.

In February 2008, an A340-600 was successfully tested with a new electric braking system developed by Messier-Bugatti with Airbus. The test included landings with automatic braking and rejected take-offs.

FLIGHT DECK

The flight deck on the A340-600 is almost identical to that of the basic A340 and there is very little difference between the operating procedures of the two aircraft. As a consequence any pilot qualified to fly the A340 will need only one or two days briefing to be flight rated for the A340-600. The Airbus Cross Crew Qualification (CCQ) program, enabling pilots to transit from one Airbus fly-by-wire family to another through difference training, reduces training time by 65% to 95% and significantly lowers training costs.

The multi-purpose control and display unit of the new flight management system developed by Thales and Smiths Industries has six 6.25in x 6.25in liquid crystal displays.

“A typical three-class layout in the A340-600 seats 380 passengers.”

The fly-by-wire controls of the A340-600 result in reduced turbulence and improved flying comfort. A high degree of redundancy and integrity is incorporated into the electronic flight control system, which includes five main computers and segregated power supplies and signalling lines. A Rockwell Collins Integrated Information System provides high-speed data communication links.

A two bunk rest area for the crew can be provided just aft of the flight deck. The rest area has a wardrobe, folding meal table communication and entertainment equipment. The upper bunk can be lowered to allow landing and take-off seats for two crew.

Thales Avionics has developed a digital head-up display which is planned for certification on the A340 in 2006. The HUD has a 35° x 26° field of view and uses liquid crystal displays.

FUSELAGE

The A340-600 has 20 more frames (structural members) than the A340-300 making it 10.6m longer. Advanced composites have been used for the empennage (complete tail unit) structure, all empennage and wing trailing edges, all fairings and floor panels. Superplastic foaming and diffusion bonding have been used on the inspection hatches, the tailcone cap, the slat mechanism cams and parts of the canopy.

A typical three-class layout in the A340-600 accommodates 380 passengers with 12 first-class, 54 business-class and 314 economy-class seats. A two-class layout provides 419 seats. The cabin can be reconfigured very quickly for changes in fleet deployment. There are six temperature sensor location zones along the cabin to provide comfortable conditions for the passengers. The modular in-flight entertainment system provides the passenger with a single interface unit for telephone and fax, for credit card facilities and for interactive video and games.

The new wing design, with wing area 439.4m², accommodates larger fuel tanks and provides increased lift. The wing is 20% larger in wing area than that of the A340-300. The enlarged wing allows the aircraft to cruise economically at speeds in excess of Mach 0.83.

CARGO HOLD

The cargo hold accepts the full range of existing underfloor cargo containers and pallets. The aircraft has 106in cargo doors fitted as standard. The aircraft has a bulk hold volume of 19.7m³ and can carry up to 42 LD3 containers.

LOWER DECK OPTIONS

The lower decks can be allocated to provide additional crew or passenger facilities, such as crew rest areas, bunks and sleeper cabins.

A new final assembly line of a major aerospace and defence company was not performing to expectations; while the product was being delivered on-time, costs were way above budget. Customers were happy but the company was losing money on each MSN – an unsustainable position. Additionally, there were suspicions of irregularities with documentation covering customisation and options on the product.

Existing situation

The site was a new installation, essentially a replica of an existing final assembly line for a similar product. Engineers and managers of the existing line had been brought in to set-up the new facility and its processes, and some of these people were now in line-management positions. An division between corporate and line management had developed: corporate finance was unhappy with the financial performance and blaming line-management for failing to improve operations sufficiently, while the operational managers believed the company was selling the products too cheaply. An argument used by line management was that their practices were the same as the existing line which had been in operation for many years, and therefore no improvements were possible. Their concern was that a ‘cost-saving’ initiative would simply slash inventories, result in stock-outs and ultimately delivery delays. The sales team countered operations’ underselling accusations by demonstrating competitors’ pricing and providing evidence of similar contracts at comparable pricing levels.

Mobilisation and Awareness

A series of workshops were held with corporate and line-management to define the objectives and scope of the project. It was quickly agreed that while the primary objective was to reduce costs, any solutions must not adversely impact either quality or on-time delivery. With the scope agreed, tensions between the battling groups reduced.

Investigation and analysis

Investigations focused on three streams: Operational Waste, Compliance Management and Comparable Pricing.

By far the largest stream was the investigation into operational waste. A variety of analyses were performed including Time-Based-Analysis (a form of value stream mapping showing inventory utilisation and value-adding rates); operator effectiveness measures; space utilisation; assembly methods analysis and supplier competitiveness. A decision was taken early to define ‘significant component design changes’ as out-of-scope so DFX analyses were avoided.

A series of presentations of the results was followed by workshops to agree the baseline metrics that would define the success or failure of subsequent improvements.

The investigations revealed that there were some minor issues with compliance management and that prices being charged for the product by the company were marginally higher than competitors’ prices. A range of metrics on operational waste revealed results including:

• 40% of technicians time was spent on non-value-adding activities such as searching for parts and tools, waiting for answers to questions or waiting for support services.
• Stock-outs on engineered sub-assemblies averaged 20% which caused significant amount of non-value-adding work to re-allocate parts between MSNs.
• Stock turns on a large proportion of standard consumables were under 2 per year – meaning that items were purchased an average of 6 months before they were actually required for installation.

Planning and skills training

Specific projects were defined from the results of phase 1, each was expected to be of three months duration though some, due to their complexity were five or six months. A project definition document was created for each project by the team that was to implement that project. Each project definition defined the objective and scope of the project along with at least 3 metrics, each base-lined and each with a target value to be achieved by completion. Each project had an executive sponsor who participated in the planning and definition workshops.

Projects with interfaces to others had common team members to minimise duplication of effort and to avoid double-counting of benefits. A range of training sessions were delivered to provide the knowledge and skills to members of the teams that would develop and implement solutions. The content of each training was adjusted to cover the most likely tools that each team would use during their project. For these types of projects tools that were most useful came from the Lean and Industrial Engineering domains.

Project Management

Projects were grouped into stand-alones (those that could be started immediately) and those that required other projects to be at least part completed before they could start. Each project followed a gated project plan (similar to DMAIC) and reported progress against the plan to a two-weekly steering group meeting. The few projects that stalled or were otherwise obstructed were not required to produce additional reports, they were given additional resources.

Completion and Sustainability

On completion each project presented summary findings, actions, results and sustainability actions to the steering group. Metrics were institutionalised and became part of the line’s weekly management reporting. Additional training was given for supervisors and managers who had not been part of each team to ensure understanding and correct interpretation of the metrics.

Results

• 89% of the projects completed within the six month assignment
• 62% over-achieved against their original objectives

Benefits

• Stock inventory holding reduced by €4m (Kanban, vendor managed inventory)
• WIP reduced by 43% (line balancing, facility layout)
• Throughput time reduced by 31% (line balancing)
• Labour time per MSN reduced by 22% (Value analysis, reorganisation of tooling, consumables and job kitting, improvements to jigs and fixtures)
• Stock outs of engineered components reduced by 90% (supplier development)
• Line profitability now in the company’s top quartile

Critical Success Factors

A post-assignment review conducted with most of the teams’ members agreed that the critical elements that helped to ensure success of the project were:

• Initially defining that the initiative must not badly affect either quality or on-time delivery – reduced resistance from antagonistic managers.
• Project definitions each with baseline and specific objectives – gave clear focus to each project
• Involvement of executive sponsor in project definition – obtained buy-in and helped to ensure appropriate actions taken by sponsor for those projects that encountered unforeseen issues.
• Each team included representation from the internal supplier and internal customer of the scoped part of the process – provided a broader perspective and prevented sub-optimisation.
• Training was specific to each project’s likely need – didn’t produce ‘tool-heads’ but people with appropriate skills for the tasks at hand
• Solutions were developed by the teams – groups of people who were responsible for those day-to-day activities – not an external consultant mandating ineffective changes.

To learn more about this case study, please get in touch

The business improvement initiative of an aerospace company had been successful initially, but support was fading. They needed help to re-invigorate the approach, called “Qual-Impro”, to return to delivering solid business improvements.

Existing situation

Qual-Impro was a 2-year-old initiative that took a classic six-sigma approach. Initially, feedback and results were positive but in the last six months the Qual-Impro leader had noticed a reduction in activity levels and a gradually increasing project duration. He was also hearing more apathy from fellow managers about projects under their sponsorship.

Understanding

The starting point was to understand the history of the initiative and to understand its perception in the eyes of people around the business. A series of interviews with randomly selected people from across the business delivered some key insights:

• While everyone in the business had heard of the initiative, most had only a limited understanding of its purpose and some held beliefs about it that were never intended.
• Initial excitement over learning new tools had given way to a realisation that it was plain hard work.
• There were complaints that the tools and methodology had not worked for some projects.
• There was little knowledge of the benefits realised by projects delivered.
• There was a perception that as business priorities changed, so did the preferred projects. The initiative was now generally considered as a cost-slashing exercise and had lost credibility.

A review of past projects revealed a number of issues:

• Projects were selected on a subjective basis – weak project definition documents didn’t demonstrate a real understanding of the purpose, scope or background to the issue.
• The methodology was a rigid interpretation of DMAIC and prescribed which tools were to be used in which phase, irrespective of the type of project.
• Project control was simplistic – project leaders informed the steering group when they completed each phase. No information was given or requested regarding problems, issues and successes.
• There was little communication of successes or failures after the very first round of projects completed.

Discussion and Planning

A two-day workshop was held to discuss and validate the findings. People from across the business functions and across managerial levels participated. The purpose of the session was to create a small number of streams of work to address each key validated issue.

Following the initial workshop, the group split into smaller groups consider each stream. They investigated further where appropriate and proposed a series of actions.

A consolidation session was held where each stream leader presented plans for the approval of the entire group.

Summary of agreed actions:

• Review and clarify the purpose of the initiative by assessing its fit with the company’s stated strategies, modifying as necessary and communicating the clarification around the organisation.
• Create project selection criteria to help to select reasonable and valid projects.
• Reduce the number of mandatory tools to be used for each project, based on historical evidence of the value each tool provided across all successful projects.
• Develop training sessions for other tools likely to be valuable for projects that met the selection criteria – this included a number of tools from the Lean domain.
• Define a more robust project management and control methodology which required more involvement from the sponsor at each phase gate.
• Improve the reporting of project successes and failures, including the creation of an area on the intranet to publish case studies and results.
• Publish the results of this re-think of Qual-Impro to help to clarify and re-invigorate the initiative in the minds of all staff.
• Create a summary report of progress and achievements to be submitted and reviewed at monthly board meetings.

Results

One year on, activity levels are now higher than at the original launch of the initiative. Project completion rates are improving and project duration is reducing.

A re-survey of the original randomly selected participants showed an increased level of understanding and support for the initiative.

A turning point was cited as being when the CEO publicly thanked all project teams’ members during the annual company dinner and mentioned some of the benefits being seen in terms of improving customer satisfaction and reduction in costs of quality – two of the metrics submitted to the monthly board meetings.

MRO – Test time reduction

Background

This defence contractor was experiencing losses due to excessive time to test and repair equipment on a major retrofit program. The test phase was consuming 150 man-hours per unit and 7 days of lead time more than the planned, contracted timings. A small, part-time project team of 4 of the company’s people was created to resolve the situation within 6 months.

The approach

The team followed the DRIVER methodology, a complex-problem solving methodology very similar to DMAIC and 8D.

Analysis of the current situation identified that while the actual tests themselves were all necessary and performed relatively efficiently, the preparation stages, communications and resolution of test failures contained many loops, hand-offs and mis-communications. Basic Value Analysis was used to identify the critical activities and to prioritise non-essential activities for improvement or elimination.

The team worked closely with their colleagues throughout the project to ensure buy-in and to reduce the inevitable resistance to change

Results

Without changing any of the actual test procedures, the project saved over €300,000 in recurring costs during the first year of implementation, rising to €600,000 during the second and subsequent years of this 5 year contract. These savings were directly reflected on the company’s bottom-line profit.

Payback period: 2.3 months

ROI: 500% after 1 year, 4500% after 5 years

For further information regarding this case study or an informal discussion regarding your specific needs, contact;

Jeremy Tranmer

info@game-change.com

Game-Change (Lean Aerospace) Consulting

Compliance management

Background

This civil avionics division of a major aerospace and defence company was experiencing difficulties with maintaining compliance to the various industry and customer regulations. It was ‘on probation’ with Boeing, its primary customer. This meant that in addition to being unable to bid for any new work, Boeing inspectors were checking the minutiae of every activity. The managing director set improvement in compliance as one of the critical three objectives for the year.

Existing situation

The company had some 1500 procedural documents that contained much duplication, many inconsistencies, errors and omissions. People in the business didn’t know where to find information they needed in order to perform their work to meet regulatory conditions.

The approach

Phase 1 – Process based system

The decision was taken to structure the documented management system around the actual operating processes, rather than by function or by regulation. A top-down process map of core and supporting processes was developed, starting with the executive group.

The existing documentation was analysed and each section and paragraph categorised into new process-based structure to ensure no critical areas were omitted.

Using a simple, layered flowchart approach, the new documentation was developed. Gaps were filled, duplications were removed and inconsistencies resolved.

Process owners were established for each process area, supported by teams of ‘process operators’.

Phase 2 – Validation

Process teams conducted reviews (audits) of actual practice against the newly re-structured system to identify discrepancies. These discrepancies were then categorised into two groups: update documentation to reflect acceptable practices; change unacceptable practices to match documentation.

The first group were actioned immediately, while the second were put on hold pending phase 3

At the same time, a compliance team created a Compliance Database containing the detailed requirements of the key standards. These included Boeing’s D1-9000, ISO9001, JAR21 and JAR145 among others. This database linked the detailed elemental requirements of each standard (some 400 individual requirements in the case of Boeing’s D1-900) to short statements of ‘policy’, then linked each statement of policy to the activities within the flowcharted system that demonstrated compliance to that requirement.

Further areas of non-compliance were identified during the creation of the Compliance Database.

Phase 3 – Achieving Full Compliance

Each process team now had a comprehensive list of areas of non-compliance to the standards and regulations and were able to methodically resolve each discrepancy. Action plans were created and implemented. The regulatory bodies and customer agents were involved throughout the entire project to ensure the end result would meet their expectations

Results

The company was immediately removed from Boeing’s ‘on probation’ status.

CAA officers cited the company’s approach and in particular the Compliance Database as Best Practice in the industry. They publicised this through their training programs.

People across the business reported increased trust in the documented system and began to use it as their reference.

The number of non-compliances noted by every auditing body dropped dramatically.

Benefits

• Easily maintained system
• Gaps, duplications and inconsistencies easy to identify and resolve
• Increased compliance and reduced liability
• Reduced confusion, reduced wastes of time through doing the wrong thing or having to search for answers

Additionally, an unexpected benefit presented when the division merged with its defence avionics sister: The managing director reported that having an accurately documented set of processes in easy to understand form dramatically reduced the integration effort post-merger.

For further information regarding this case study or an informal discussion regarding your specific needs, contact;

Jeremy Tranmer

info@game-change.com

Game-Change (Lean Aerospace) Consulting

Shannon Aerospace Ltd. attributes the 24-day turntime it achieved for D checks on a pair of Croatia Airlines’ Airbus A319s to Lean activities it has been putting in place to cut out waste and capitalize on efficiencies.

Here, SAL’s workforce poses with aircraft 9A-CTG, the first of the two A319s to be redelivered to Croatia Airlines.

[Photo: Shannon Aerospace Ltd.]

One of the Lean techniques SAL uses is ‘pulsing,’ which moves an aircraft from one station to another after a certain number of hours or days, and is designed to creates urgency and flexibility. The focus on Lean also emphasizes the predictability and reliability of SAL’s maintenance products, the company says.

Redelivery of the first aircraft to Croatia on Feb. 6 marked the first such turnaround for the company. It completed the D1-check plus sampling (which SAL says is the most comprehensive check possible on a 1998 aircraft), in 17 days. A seven-day paint job took the number of days to 24, which was well ahead of the contracted groundtime, SAL notes. It achieved an identical timeframe with the second aircraft.

Source: Elyse Moody MRO Blog

SR Technics has unveiled details of of the reductions in maintenance check durations that it is achieving following a concentrated effort under new CEO Bern Kessler to improve efficiency.

The Zurich-based MRO firm says it has cut check-times by as much as 30% through the implementation of further lean-production techniques.

At the Paris Air Show this week it said it had cut the turn-around time on Airbus narrowbody intermediate layover check (IL check) from 21 days to 14 days, claiming a market-leading performance.

It says: “SR Technics’ IL check for the A320 family contains all six-year/24,000 flight-hour-related maintenance planning document tasks and includes strippng and repainting of the fuselage and vertical tail, as well as a standard cabin refurbishment package if required.

“Operators looking for a major cabin refurbishment or overhaul can run this in parallel, taking advantage of SR Technics’ longstanding experience in advanced cabin modifications.”

Additionally on the Airbus narrowbodies, the A-check interval on some customer aircraft has been increased from 600 to 800 flight hours, cutting A-check-related costs by more than 30%.

On Airbus widebodies, the company says it has cut average turn-around time from 24 to 21 days “with or without paint”.

Kessler, a veteran of Honeywell’s six-sigma and lean programmes, has promised an ongoing drive to improve efficiency at SR Technics’ current plants. The company, with major bases at Zurich and London Stansted, is also looking to open a new lower cost facility on the European periphery.

By Kieran Daly