Scope of Work:

A major player in the Aerospace industry hired the Global Partner Solutions team to support and lead the recovery of their core Tier 1 Suppliers. The SOW consisted of

• Full Recovery of the Suppliers to the current schedule
• Perform load/capacity analysis at the tier 1 Supplier and Capacity audits at sub-tier level
• Provide Source Inspection to limit non-conformities.

Challenges:

Load Hours were not 1 for 1, productivity percentages were used (capturing incremental improvements) and not shared by the supplier, making it difficult to understand “Actual Load Hours” across each machine.

• Some Machines were scheduled for 7/20 operations which led to no open capacity for additional recovery.
• High reliance on overtime – as high as 20% to meet Load/Hours that lead to Suppliers not able to sustain the level that resulted in missed targets.
• Suppliers were performing Forward Schedule practice – this led to behind schedule to customer PO.
• Lead times not accurate for OSP (Outside Processing) and OSM (Outside Machining) and did not reflect on the overall lead-time for parts.
• Supplier lacked visibility of actual number of Load Hours offloaded to each sub-tier supplier along with no Load and Capacity Analysis performed at sub-tiers.
• No Corrective Action Board (CAB) process existed.

Activities & Results:

• GPSI stopped the forward scheduling practice.
• GPSI advised and secured the procurement of an extra Lathe to help stop the 7/20 operation on some machines. Lowered the Overtime to 10%
• Implementation of CAB process to limit the repeat non-conformances.
• Eliminated some old castings in favor of Hog out, this led to a reduction in non-conformances by 45%
• Detailed Load and Capacity analysis performed at several OSP and OSM sub-tiers to better understand supplier capabilities.
• Implementation of daily tracking of hours planned vs hours achieved for each machine.
• GPSI introduced daily morning standups to discuss any issues from the previous shifts.
• Introduced daily war room calls between Suppliers and the client to leverage client’s expertise on complex engineering problems that led to several Drawing Revs that saved hundreds of hours of redundant testing and processes.
• Data Cleanse – Leadtimes were corrected for every part that had OSM and OSP that resulted in improved OTD and customer satisfaction.