One of the reasons that statistics continually show commercial airline travel is safer than driving a car is strict regulation—of everything from pilot training to the production of airplane components.
Before planes manufactured by companies from Boeing to Gulfstream—not to mention defense contractors such as Lockheed and BAE—can even leave the ground, they must adhere to some of the most stringent quality standards ever devised.
Luke Adair, senior national account manager at JPW Industries, has worked with all of them. So has his colleague, product training manager Chuck Holcomb.
They and the team at JPW represent a wide range of machine tool brands, including Jet, Wilton, Edwards and Baileigh, the latter of which enjoys broad use in sheet metal fabrication throughout the aerospace and defense industries.
“We’ve worked on projects with each of these companies, whether it’s bending parts on a CNC press brake or cutting sheet and plate stock on a laser or plasma table cutter,” Adair says.
Aerospace fabrication is demanding, close-tolerance work, they agree. Many of the parts are made of difficult metals like titanium, not to mention newer composite materials that are both abrasive and prone to delamination.
“We also see a fair amount of plate-rolling work, where it can be challenging to meet radius requirements,” Holcomb adds. “Whatever the application, however, customers in this industry demand high-quality equipment at a competitive price.”
A Demanding Industry
It’s not surprising that airplane and spacecraft manufacturers, not to mention those responsible for maintenance and repair operations, would be finicky in their equipment selection.
After all, each must not only adhere to various Federal Aviation Administration and other industry-specific requirements but also overcome challenges that go well beyond bending parts and drilling holes. These include:
1. Compliance
Shops providing parts for the aerospace industry are (or should be) well-acquainted with AS9100. According to its publisher, SAE International, the worldwide standard is supported by the International Aerospace Quality Group and “specifies the QMS [quality management system] requirements to be documented and implemented by organizations designing, developing, and manufacturing aerospace products.”
As with the more general ISO 9001 certification, the requirements are stringent, and compliance can be both tedious and demanding. Still, it’s a small price to pay for participation in this industry, as it provides clear-cut guidelines for manufacturers and their suppliers and helps both to improve process control.
To comply with AS9100, companies must meet multiple criteria. Regular employee training, supplier monitoring, management review, adherence to ethics standards and numerous other requirements must all be evaluated, documented and routinely audited for compliance.
Bringing in a consultant early in the process might be a good investment. The same can be said for software tools or platforms that help monitor and ensure adherence to these requirements.
2. Cost Control
Along with rigorous quality requirements, aerospace manufacturing is highly competitive. One strategy for coping is using a cost control tower, which assigns ratings to affordability initiatives based on their odds of success and consolidates data across departments and companies.
According to the consulting firm McKinsey & Co., cost control towers help companies in many industries—aerospace and defense among them—stay within budget and reduce costs.
With high-value contracts common, cost overruns can be a significant concern. But by prioritizing manufacturing projects and continuous improvement initiatives, companies can determine which ones to implement first, as well as which ones to forgo.
The term “control tower” in this context is relatively new, however. Initially an SCM (supply chain management) tool, it provides a host of capabilities that companies can use to capture data in real time, analyze and predict trends, model alternative scenarios and offer collaborative responses to potential problems.
Although a company’s ERP (enterprise resource planning) software may support some of these functions, it’s likely that a more comprehensive solution will be needed, one that gathers and shares information across multiple platforms. Regardless, control towers are a valuable tool for managing supply chains, project costs and much more.
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