Lean Transformation: Three Truths A&D Manufacturers Can’t Afford to Ignore

September 12, 2019 | by Steve Dowzicky

SOLUTION AREA: Operational Excellence

In many ways, the aerospace industry is its own animal—with improvement challenges that can be deeper, broader and more difficult to resolve when compared to other manufacturing environments. Aerospace executives who seek to increase output, speed time to market and improve the bottom line with Lean and Six Sigma techniques must keep three important truths in mind and implement an improvement strategy that reflects them.

Truth 1

Regulatory compliance is a fact of life. Much like medical device and food manufacturers, the aerospace industry has myriad—and unforgiving—government regulations that must be met without fail.  If your company sells aerospace and defense parts globally, especially within the European Union and U.S., there are a range of requirements you must meet in order to maintain market access, avoid financial penalties and meet critical market delivery deadlines. Failure to comply with government mandates negatively impacts both on-time market delivery and the bottom line, yet too often, the root cause of the failure isn’t easy to detect. Solution? Give abnormalities greater visibility and drive the right responses to address them.

“Removing variation and doing it right the first time around is essential.”

Truth 2

Lapses in quality can have serious consequences. Based on both regulatory requirements and the industry’s own internal standards of excellence, the manufacture of A&D parts and services requires precision and attention to detail. Much like the healthcare industry, “close enough quality” is simply not acceptable—because the failure to adhere to expected levels of quality and consistency can have unexpected, costly and even catastrophic consequences. A malfunctioning satellite, once deployed, can’t easily be retrieved or repaired, and a faulty jet engine may result in a loss of life.

“Once a satellite is in space, it’s hard to get a repairman out there to fix it.”

Truth 3

Unresolved issues lead to costly “waiting waste”. In an increasingly competitive industry, getting product to market as quickly as possible to start generating revenue is the end game—all while keeping in mind that both the product quality and the regulatory compliance issues mentioned above must be strictly adhered to. As a high-tech industry, where complexity is the norm, aerospace manufacturing will inevitably present problems to be solved, requiring triage, garnering resources for disposition and ultimately leading to massive inefficiency. Without the right improvement system in place, problem/resolution time can take days and weeks rather than hours—”waiting waste” that is often hard to spot and mitigate.

“Waiting is a hidden waste that often isn’t seen or measured for days or weeks.”

So, how do you tackle the challenges that these three industry “truths” present? With expertise only CBS can offer. Our team collectively has over 400 years of direct A&D experience and a proven client-improvement record. We apply our extensive Lean / Six Sigma knowledge to help aerospace clients quickly identify and attack variation and waste to ensure new levels of productivity and efficiency.

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