Lean manufacturing techniques increase production and morale at Airbus UK

Citation

(2005), "Lean manufacturing techniques increase production and morale at Airbus UK", Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, Vol. 77 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/aeat.2005.12777aaf.001

Lean manufacturing techniques increase production and morale at Airbus UK

Lean manufacturing techniques increase production and morale at Airbus UK

Keywords: Manufacturing systems, Airbus UK, Aircraft

There have been a few groundbreaking initiatives that have changed industries perception and market for good. Such initiatives are frequently born out of passion to change the shape of things for the good of the consumer. The enemy of change has been complacency and an attitude best described as “if it ain't broke – don't fix it”. It therefore takes a dash of brilliance to succeed in changing age-old infrastructures and methods of doing business. Good examples, now taken for granted, are found in the financial services sector where direct line shook up the insurance business and first direct paved the way for all who followed in telephone and Internet banking.

Yet perhaps, the most exciting change for Joe Public has been the increasing affordability of air travel, shrinking the world over the years. This is widely recognised as resulting, at least in part, from the competition between the US manufacturer Boeing and its younger, European competitor Airbus. With the advent of low cost, no frills, airlines in recent years and the impact on the aviation business of world events, the competition to offer ever better value for money to the airline customer continues apace.

Aircraft manufacturers under pressure

Wing designer and manufacturer Airbus UK is part of this evolution. Airbus is thriving with its product line-up covering a full spectrum of 14 aircraft models. It now captures around half of all orders for airliners with more than 100 seats. Furthermore, it might have taken Airbus 30 years, but in 2003 its deliveries exceeded that of its main rival and its turnover was reported at 19.3 billion euros. There are more than 3,600 Airbus aircraft in operation around the world, with 225 operators. There is a lot that captures the imagination, however the most inspiring recent development is the much anticipated 555-seat A380 programme, a double-decker aircraft which is being hailed as the most advanced, spacious and efficient airliner ever conceived and the solution to growing passenger traffic between major hubs. True to form, the A380 will provide 15-20 per cent lower operating costs, 10-15 per cent more range, lower fuel burn, less noise and lower emissions than the largest civil aircraft flying today.

To keep pace with overall market demands for cost efficiency and value and also to protect itself from fluctuating exchange rates, Airbus has introduced a programme, dubbed “Route 06”, which examines all of its processes and procedures to find productivity gains and realise cost savings by 2006.

“Route 06” is bringing about gradual positive change in many areas of the global organisation, including the company's two UK-based sites.

In manufacturing areas Route 06, is coupled with implementing “Lean Manufacturing” techniques, – which draws inspiration and direction from the automotive industry, to eliminate waste and develop very tight, economical and lean manufacturing practices. “It is these practices we now emulate as and where appropriate”, said David Herbert, Business Improvement Change Agent, Airbus planning and logistics department at the company's Filton, Bristol site. “Obviously the automotive industry is vastly different to ours because they build many cars an hour and we build a plane a day. That's how I like to describe the rhythm of the business, since a plane-a-day sets the scene for all of our planning and logistics and focuses the mind on what our key objectives are.”

Having said this, David Herbert went on to describe the increasing cost pressures that growth in production has brought about – “Airlines are naturally squeezing price and delivery wherever they can and all manufacturers are feeling that pressure across their manufacturing sites. Learning from the automotive industry we have been taking as much waste out of our business as possible as well as constantly improving product quality. Clearly, we cannot compromise on any technicalities, the final product, quality, build or safety. Therefore, we look to take the waste out of our business processes and these savings are coming from many diverse areas of our operation.”

Innovation in treatments facility increases production and morale

An example of one area where the company has seen a major improvement and therefore made savings is stock auditing. “The critical objective for the Route 06 programme is to cut the cost base by 2006, which in real terms means that we have had to break down our nitty gritty processes and look for improvements. One of our first forays was to look at our auditing procedures. Stock takes are notoriously hard to get a handle on and WIP [Work In Progress] counts in particular. Typically we would audit WIP three to four times a year. Prior to the introduction of Symbol mobile handheld terminals, supplied by PEAK Technologies, we would limit movements over a weekend and conduct a manual count. As you can imagine, this was a very expensive and time-consuming operation. It took 20 people and 100 man-hours. With the introduction of mobile data capture technology, we have shown that a site count can be carried out in an afternoon in just 20 man-hours, with no disruption to production. We were impressed! Mobile handheld terminals allow us to achieve rapid counts; WIP audits in critical areas are now a common event with instantly available data, which in turn updates the inventory records held by our SAP system. This simple initiative has more or less eliminated a laborious task, making us more efficient, saving time and of course, lowering costs. It shouldn't be underestimated either, since we have to have traceability on all stock, from the penny washer to a major component, nothing can be left to chance. We have to account for everything and maintain accurate traceability throughout manufacturing and assembly of aircraft.”

“Using mobile handheld terminals for WIP audits opened up a whole new concept to us and gave us an insight into the technology and its possible use in new applications. It was quickly recognised that our Treatments facility in particular could benefit”, said David Herbert.

As you would expect from such a rigorous and safety conscious environment, Airbus's procedures are very detailed and every job is managed by the central ERP system, SAP. “Whilst all jobs have a process order number, traceability has always been complex in our Treatment facility. Each week we process something in the order of 30,000 parts, which is equivalent to 800 orders. We have four business units feeding jobs onto two carousels and there are time constraints between processes. We also have to manage items as large as 1.8 x 2.5 m, and as small as a washer. One carousel is designated for the treatment of large items and the other for small. Difficulties arise when dealing with medium sized items, which means that 50% of the jobs can be routed onto either carousel depending on workload.” The treatment process comprises cleaning, crack detection, surface conditioning, heat treatment, plating, masking and painting.

“We have an urgent job find procedure, which previously relied upon a shop scheduler locating an urgent job by visual inspection of all process orders in the carousel area, normally 500 at any one time. In reality, this meant that someone had to manually cross-check the jobs in the treatment facility against a SAP produced hardcopy shortage report. After a while the scheduler could become number blind and rarely were all urgent jobs identified in one search”, said David Herbert.

Boys toys and scanning technology

“As a result of using mobile handheld terminals for WIP audits, we recognised that the Urgent Job Finding Procedure was crying out for this technology. We entered into discussions with PEAK Technologies to establish how best to address the application and realised we needed some bespoke software to provide a feedback loop for data in and out of SAP. The urgent job list is generated by SAP in the first place”.

Fortunately, and as part of its integrated solution set, PEAK Technologies was able to offer Airbus a bespoke software application engineered with its MCL rapid application development tool. PEAK's MCL suite of software products provides companies with the ability to develop, debug and deploy business critical Auto ID systems. Furthermore, it combines PEAK's vast experience of mobile data capture technology, with a fully consultative approach, that allows it to develop cost-effective applications for the job in hand.

“PEAK's solution, in combination with the existing Symbol handheld terminals, has delivered dramatic improvements throughout our urgent jobs process and is extremely simple to use. The shop scheduler calls down the urgent jobs list from SAP onto a PC and from there it is loaded into the handheld terminal. He then enters the treatment facility and scans all of the jobs' barcodes. As an urgent one is identified, the handheld terminal plays a musical combination of bleeps – alerting the shop scheduler, who is then able to accelerate the job, in the normal way. All of this takes a fraction of the time it used to take.”

“Once scanning is completed, the captured data is uploaded into a report ready for SAP. Using this solution, we are now finding urgent jobs in considerably less time, which of course means that we are a lot more efficient and cost effective”, continued David Herbert.

“All of our staff are highly skilled and highly qualified individuals. The old way was simply not good use of their expertise, the PEAK developed software solution and the introduction of handheld terminals has made their working day much more productive.”

“As a supplier, PEAK has proven to be flexible, reliable and understands our needs. They were aware that the first round of software would inevitably need tweaking and have been very responsive in making those minor adjustments”, concluded David Herbert.

Using bespoke software from PEAK Technologies and Symbol mobile handheld terminals, Airbus has opened up a whole raft of possible applications. It is indeed looking to the future and considering where it can deploy today's and tomorrow's technology to reduce manual processes, make better use of its very talented people and further drive down costs.

Details available from: PEAK Technologies UK. Tel: +44 (0)1344290000; E-mail: nhannay@peakeurope.com