Jun 18
StevenDeamAerospace Machining, Certification, Document Management, Lean Manufacturing, Precision Machining Aerospace Machining, Custom Machined Parts, ERP, Job Manager, Lean Manufacturing, wastes
The fifth of the seven wastes is the most readily obvious waste – defects. A part or product that is not made correctly and needs to be either re-worked or discarded, is obviously a waste. The time spent on the original part is wasted, the material and other costs are wasted, the time that it takes to re-work or re-make the part is wasted. Overall defects cause considerable disruptions and waste.
Once again high volume work has an easier time of removing defects from the process. the length of the run of a part will justify creating more complex and expensive fixturing to enable quality at the course – so that the part has little or no chance of being produced improperly. Custom inspection procedures will allow quick discovery of any non-conforming parts as well.
In a low volume high mix facility – as a large portion of CNC Industries is, making custom machined parts and precision aerospace machined parts, we cannot spend an extensive amount of time on fixturing – our lead time for the entire first batch of product is sometimes shorter than production companies will spend on a single fixture for a production part. The inspection requirements and quality standards will also vary – sometimes greatly – between parts running through our shop at the same time. We have to ensure that each fixture is made quickly and still performs as it needs to.
Of course defects are caused by a myriad of issues beyond just the fixturing the part correctly. We have many more methods of preventing mistakes and defects before they occur, but I think a more telling evaluation of a companies dedication to eliminating defects is the processes taken when a defect does occur. At CNC Industries, we place great emphasis on root cause analysis and corrective / preventative actions. As we are nearing our AS9100 certification, we are more aware of this need than ever before.
Our Corrective Action System is based on the Apollo Root Cause Analysis and allows and indefinite depth of root cause analysis. We regard and defect as a serious issue and are quick to come to an understanding of the root cause that allowed the defect to occur. With our ERP system, we are able to quickly resolve any ongoing systemic issue and immediately take the necessary corrective action to prevent future occurrences of the issue. Preventative and corrective actions and their resolutions are transmitted throughout the company immediately upon completion and necessary procedural and process changes are automatically updated. All relevant documentation is kept entirely in sync with our digital paperless document system.
The ability to adjust our entire process to address a deficiency in the processes that we utilize allows us to have an extremely low defect rate – and when the very occasional defect does occur we can quickly adapt and prevent the problem in the future.
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CNC Industries is a Fort Wayne, Indiana based machine shop specializing in precision CNC machining, fabrication and assembly of application-critical and custom machined parts for the Aerospace, Defense, Medical, Industrial and Transportation markets. The company presently employs approximately 55 people.
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Jun 14
StevenDeamAerospace Machining, Document Management, Lean Manufacturing, Precision Machining, Technology Aerospace Machining, Custom Machined Parts, Document Management, Lean Manufacturing, motion, the seven wastes
The 4th waste identified in lean manufacturing is Motion. Motion concerns the ergonomics of the workers in a process and any unnecessary steps or movement that they have in the process.
To again look at the difference of a high mix / low volume precision aerospace machining facility and a high volume production we will see a difference in the ability to reduce motion. In a high volume production environment you can count on a particular workstation being focused on a single task – even if that task is performed over a variety of individual parts, the motions and the ergonomics will be similar. In a low volume precision machine shop, the task on one day may be entirely different than the task of the prior day. While they will be related still – depending on the functionality of the machine at the workstation – the individual parts may require a significant difference in motion or handling.
To compensate for this changing process, CNC industries has designed it’s facility to accommodate a high mix of precision parts easily. While the information and documentation may vary from one part to another, we have standardized the method of getting that information into electronic information stations which are uniformly located near the workstations. Each worker in our facility may count on being able to get all necessary work instructions in the same way.
We have also standardized our machine setups with the tooling being handle off of the machine to eliminate unnecessary motion in the setup process. The advantages of removing extra motion include more productivity, less stress on the people involved in the process, as well as lowered chances of errors and mistakes being made. So even with a facility dedicated to fully custom machined parts and prototypes, we can easily remove unnecessary wastes.
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CNC Industries is a Fort Wayne, Indiana based machine shop specializing in precision CNC machining, fabrication and assembly of application-critical and custom machined parts for the Aerospace, Defense, Medical, Industrial and Transportation markets. The company presently employs approximately 55 people.
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Jun 07
StevenDeamAerospace Machining, Lean Manufacturing, Precision Machining, Technology Aerospace Machining, Custom Machined Parts, inventory, Lean Manufacturing, Precision Machining, the seven wastes
In continuing on the Lean Journey, we will talk about the third of seven wastes: Inventory. Historically, inventory was not considered a waste. Large batch manufacturing was a necessity at the beginning of modern machining and manufacturing. Inventory stocks were considered healthy as they indicated that a business could ship to their customers quickly. The story of Inventory becoming considered a waste starts in post WWII Japan. Japan underwent a transformation in their productivity and processes after WWII and began to compete well on the world market. Unfortunately Japan does not have the land area that America does, and therefore the cost of holding inventory was much greater – due to the higher property costs, etc. Toyoda quickly realized that smaller batches, when made efficiently, lead to lower overall costs than large batches do.
In a precision aerospace machining environment, a balancing act is needed. Since CNC Industries machines a large variety of precision parts we cannot afford to have a specialized machine for each part or process that we do. Small machine shops also do not have the luxury of a rolling assembly line between our machines. With these restrictions, and the large amount of processing and manufacturing time that it takes to make a single aerospace part, we are put into a more difficult position that a production facility. We cannot truly operate with no inventory as the goal would be, so we must decide on the ideal inventory to keep on hand.
Precision aerospace machining processes typically have rather long setup times relative to simpler machining processes. This causes the ideal batch size to increase in order to compensate for the lost time on the machine while it is down for setup. At CNC Industries we have worked long and hard to decrease our setup times and have successfully lowered our setup time by 75% over the last 5 years. This has enable us to lower the ideal batch size as well, which in turn allows us to hold less inventory.
In addition to the setup process improvements that we have made over the years, information management is key to efficiently running small batches. Smaller batches will mean more switchovers, more setups, and more jobs running at the same time. With all of these issues, scheduling is both critical and difficult. Job Manager II allows us to have a visual reference of the schedule at any computer throughout our facility and quickly identifies and problems or potential problems at an early stage of the process which allows us to quickly make any necessary adjustments.
May 14
StevenDeamAerospace Machining, Lean Manufacturing, Precision Machining Aerospace Machining, Lean Manufacturing, Precision Machining, the seven wastes, transportation
In continuing on the topic of lean manufacturing in an aerospace machining environment today I will look at how CNC Industries handles the second waste identified in lean manufacturing. The second waste is typically identified as unnecessary transportation. At CNC Industries we look both at internal and external transportation as areas that can cause waste.
The costs of external transportation (shipping) are easy to identify. With external transportation we can easily see the cost of the transportation in dollars as we receive bills from the shipping companies. Any extra shipments obviously incur additional charges and it becomes important to keep the number of shipments required to an absolute minimum. To facilitate this we often work with our outside vendors to have our parts shipped directly from one vendor to another in the case that we have multiple outside operations back to back. As often as possible we find outside vendors that handle multiple processes to save both on the cost of production as well as the cost of transportation. In addition our AS9100 compliant procedures for selecting and purchasing from our vendors allows us confidence in the quality of the parts that we have outsourced.
Internal transportation costs are often more difficult to quantify. Many times companies will both start and stop their efforts on cycle times and overproduction as I talked about in the prior post. Transporting the parts internally more than necessary is also a form of wasted efforts. The cost of moving the parts throughout a facility may seem minor but all forms of transportation take up time and do not add anything to the value of the part. In addition every time a part is moved it is another chance for the part to become lost or damaged.
Extra transportation can occur due to a number of factors in the manufacturing process. If the parts were not scheduled correctly they may need to be moved aside to allow a different part through the machine. Poor routing of the operations that the part takes through the manufacturing process may mean that a part is scheduled through machines that are far apart in the factory. Poor engineering of the part machining process itself may mean that the part has more machining operations than necessary. Any of these items may add additional internal transportation and raise the cost and potentially lower the quality of the part.
Our ERP System – Job Manager 2 – allows us to schedule our parts with confidence that they are engineered and routed correctly. In addition to the initial engineering and routing we have a comprehensive corrective action system and Process Change Request system that allow us to continually improve our processes. Each time we manufacture a part we are able to review and adjust the process and operations as necessary to make the parts even better and more efficiently than the last time.
Aerospace machining and the high mix / low volume work that comes with it creates additional challenges in scheduling. Our engineering processes are designed to quickly work through the numerous issues with new parts and smaller batches. Our scheduling module in Job Manager 2 has a visual scheduling board that allows us to quickly determine the best routing of each part and quickly determine any problems with the processes involved. Job Manager 2 also allows us to analyze each part and quickly find any areas that have lower efficiency so that we may quickly focus our efforts in the appropriate places.
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CNC Industries is a Fort Wayne, Indiana based machine shop specializing in precision CNC machining, fabrication and assembly of application-critical and custom machined parts for the Aerospace, Defense, Medical, Industrial and Transportation markets. The company presently employs approximately 55 people.
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May 14
StevenDeamAerospace Machining, Lean Manufacturing, Precision Machining Aerospace Machining, Lean Manufacturing, Precision Machining, the seven wastes, transportation
due to a few issues on renaming the old post I am repeating the original post with the original title.
In continuing on the topic of lean manufacturing in an aerospace machining environment today I will look at how CNC Industries handles the second waste identified in lean manufacturing. The second waste is typically identified as unnecessary transportation. At CNC Industries we look both at internal and external transportation as areas that can cause waste.
The costs of external transportation (shipping) are easy to identify. With external transportation we can easily see the cost of the transportation in dollars as we receive bills from the shipping companies. Any extra shipments obviously incur additional charges and it becomes important to keep the number of shipments required to an absolute minimum. To facilitate this we often work with our outside vendors to have our parts shipped directly from one vendor to another in the case that we have multiple outside operations back to back. As often as possible we find outside vendors that handle multiple processes to save both on the cost of production as well as the cost of transportation. In addition our AS9100 compliant procedures for selecting and purchasing from our vendors allows us confidence in the quality of the parts that we have outsourced.
Internal transportation costs are often more difficult to quantify. Many times companies will both start and stop their efforts on cycle times and overproduction as I talked about in the prior post. Transporting the parts internally more than necessary is also a form of wasted efforts. The cost of moving the parts throughout a facility may seem minor but all forms of transportation take up time and do not add anything to the value of the part. In addition every time a part is moved it is another chance for the part to become lost or damaged.
Extra transportation can occur due to a number of factors in the manufacturing process. If the parts were not scheduled correctly they may need to be moved aside to allow a different part through the machine. Poor routing of the operations that the part takes through the manufacturing process may mean that a part is scheduled through machines that are far apart in the factory. Poor engineering of the part machining process itself may mean that the part has more machining operations than necessary. Any of these items may add additional internal transportation and raise the cost and potentially lower the quality of the part.
Our ERP System – Job Manager 2 – allows us to schedule our parts with confidence that they are engineered and routed correctly. In addition to the initial engineering and routing we have a comprehensive corrective action system and Process Change Request system that allow us to continually improve our processes. Each time we manufacture a part we are able to review and adjust the process and operations as necessary to make the parts even better and more efficiently than the last time.
Aerospace machining and the high mix / low volume work that comes with it creates additional challenges in scheduling. Our engineering processes are designed to quickly work through the numerous issues with new parts and smaller batches. Our scheduling module in Job Manager 2 has a visual scheduling board that allows us to quickly determine the best routing of each part and quickly determine any problems with the processes involved. Job Manager 2 also allows us to analyze each part and quickly find any areas that have lower efficiency so that we may quickly focus our efforts in the appropriate places.
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CNC Industries is a Fort Wayne, Indiana based machine shop specializing in precision CNC machining, fabrication and assembly of application-critical and custom machined parts for the Aerospace, Defense, Medical, Industrial and Transportation markets. The company presently employs approximately 55 people.
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