UK FIRM BOOSTS SUPPLY CHAIN TO REAP INTERNATIONAL REWARDS
Posted : Sat 15th Jul 2006 @ 13:18Aerospace makes tough demands of its supply chain, from the multi-national Tier 1s to the SMEs that provide the subcontract products and services so essential to the sector. So, when specialist engineering company Burcas decided to target international aerospace buyers, it knew it would have to raise not only its own game, but also that of its suppliers.
To successfully move from "wheels to wings" the company has undergone radical changes, including making significant capital expenditure on new equipment, with a further £1m investment planned for this year. Equally important, infrastructure and processes have been streamlined - resulting in AS/EN 9100 accreditation in double-quick time.
The third strand in Burcas' strategy was to increase visibility to potential customers - it exhibited at Farnborough for the first time in 2002, a successful experience it repeated in 2004 and again this year.
The company also participated in a Trade Mission to Tokyo, organised by UKTI Aerospace Sector Team. The visit provided the opportunity to showcase Burcas' capabilities to Japanese aerospace buyers through seminars and individually targeted meetings. As a direct result of that visit the company obtained its Japanese aerospace order, which, having been successfully completed, has led to a further, much larger order for machining landing gear components.
Having established a foothold in the aerospace market Burcas determined to strengthen its position by improving not only its own performance but also that of its supply chain. In order to do this it created the Burcas Supply Chain Group (SCG) programme which aims to not only meet the requirements of its final customers but to exceed their expectations, offering a total package, benchmarked against the best in the world which will provide all participants with a real win-win situation.
The SCG programme, which is being sponsored by two of Burcas' major customers, Alstom Power, Aerospace Manufacturing Facility - Lincoln and Messier- Dowty, has received funding from the West Midlands "LiftOff" Programme - an initiative specifically targeted at West Midlands companies operating in the aerospace industry, funded through the European Regional Development Fund. Nine of Burcas' key suppliers were invited to participate in the initial two year period, companies which ranged from five-man toolmakers to multi-national steel stockholders
To run and project manage the initiative Burcas selected TEC which has extensive experience with quality and supplier development in the aerospace sector and together they developed the SCG programme to suit the specific requirements of this particular supply chain. It was determined at the outset that the programme must deliver measurable benefits to all participants; that it must be pragmatic and practical in its method of delivery and to succeed it would need to have real "buy in" from all participants.
To achieve these objectives it was decided that implementation would be driven by Six Sigma and Lean Enterprise philosophies and techniques together with the use of Kaizen Blitz to tackle short term, issues. Ownership of the project would include Mike Burrows, Burcas MD, as Programme Champion, together with additional Technical Experts within Burcas, supported by nominated Change Agents within each supplier. It is intended that at the conclusion of the project each of the Change Agents, whose task it is to share knowledge with their colleagues, will qualify as a Six Sigma Green Belt.
The programme is clearly structured, the initial launch meeting, held in May this year has already been followed by the first of the intensive two-day training sessions. These take place at six to eight week intervals to ensure that the improvement projects are carried out successfully and result in positive and measurable improvements. The training sessions cover specialist topics and there is also one-to-one coaching/mentoring where the Change Agents report on progress of sub-projects and have the opportunity to share experiences and best practice. This ensures that the key individuals use their newly acquired skills immediately and that the whole system works in a coordinated way to improve the combined effectiveness of the supply chain. Fusing theory and practice together in this way serves to boost the effectiveness of the entire supply group.
One of the priorities of the programme is that the internal systems of all the companies are optimised and synchronised and particular attention is being placed on developing advanced AQMS (Aerospace Quality Management Systems) based on AS/EN9100 for all participants. The project took as its starting point issues which are critical to the aerospace industry: Quality - both internal and delivered, Cost - driving down through productivity improvements, Delivery - On Time In Full to meet delivery schedules and Responsiveness - rapid response to engineering change, delivery schedules, etc. In addition, commercial processes were also put under the spot light; purchasing, sales order processing, invoicing, payment.
To make real improvements it is necessary to use real data and the suppliers' performance across a range of key indicators is now integrated into burcasonline.com the Burcas on-line portal, and is automatically monitored and updated through its "Progress" Production Control Software. This enables suppliers to see their latest delivery, cost and quality performance figures, as well as their ranking against other suppliers (though not the other suppliers' actual figures). In addition to providing useful performance feed-back this system is also saving considerable administrative time and cost though its use for automatically processing Non-Corrective Action reports - an example of the type of unexpected, but real bottom line benefit that has occurred as a direct result of the supply chain initiative.
Mike Burrows sums up, "Aerospace is a truly global market and while Burcas already had strong export connections, with the USA for example, we are now broadening our horizons, not only to Japan, but also closer to home - just across the Channel.
When we made the strategic decision to increase our focus into aerospace we took the first step on a long journey. Although we certainly have not yet reached our destination we have come a long way, and we are delighted to be making this journey with our supply chain colleagues."
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