Universitetstryckeriet, Luleå
Mats Forsberg Anders Johansson
A Standardised Approach to
Technical Manufacturing Information
To achieve and sustain quality, cost and design intent
MASTER OF SCIENCE PROGRAMME Ergonomic Design & Production Engineering
Luleå University of Technology Department of Human Work Sciences Division of Industrial Production Environment
2008:041 CIV • ISSN: 1402 - 1617 • ISRN: LTU - EX - - 08/041 - - SE
Acknowledgement
This thesis is the last piece of work conducted within the Master of Engineering course Ergonomic Design and Industrial Production at Luleå University of Technology in Sweden.
The project has been in collaboration with Rolls-Royce plc during the period of July 2006 until June 2007.
It has been a great year with plenty of challenges all over the United Kingdom; in sideway rain and tropical heat.
A big thanks to the central Manufacturing Engineering team in Derby, but also to
everyone who have been a part of developing the standardised manufacturing technical package at Rolls-Royce.
A special thanks to Mr Allan Elton, project manager, and Mrs Audrey McCallum, project lead, in the technical package standardisation team.
Finally we want to thank our tutors Ms Åsa Wreder and Mr Görgen Edenhagen for the help and support they have given us through out the project.
Nottingham, February 2008 Södertälje, February 2008
Anders Johansson Mats Forsberg
Abstract
The manufacturing technical package is the name of all the technical information that defines the method of manufacture for a part. It contains the necessary information for the part to achieve and sustain the required targets for quality and cost but also at the same time fulfil the design intent. A survey was carried out at Rolls-Royce and it showed that these aims were not met and there was no standard that controlled the detailed content of what technical information that was required. The objective with this thesis was to define a proposal for a new standard for Rolls-Royce manufacturing technical package to resolve these issues.
To achieve the objective, a project group of four people was put together that consisting of the two authors of this thesis, Allan Elton and Audrey McCallum. The project has been carried out in cycles where every cycle has followed the Plan-Do-Study-Act methodology.
A comprehensive survey, where all the manufacturing sites in Great Britain were
included, showed a big variation in how individual manufacturing engineers and operators worked. The survey also showed a big variation in the documentation around the method of manufacture but also a lack of the communication between departments.
Benchmarking was carried out within the company but also at other industries as part of the development of the new standard. The automotive industry has been seen as a good example, particular the “Advanced Product Quality Planning” (APQP) and “Toyota
Production System” (TPS) has been looked at to inspire new ideas. Literatures within quality, lean production and production planning have also been studied.
Requirements for the suggested solution are that it needs to enable the production to achieve and sustain the targets for quality, cost and design intent. To ensure this, the proposed standard is divided into two sections; 1) Content and structure and 2) Improvements of data, information and knowledge management.
The content and structure of the manufacturing technical information is divided into three levels; process, part family and part specific.
First level contains the control of manufacturing processes. This control shall be achieved through analyses to identify the process variables, using the “Process Failure Mode and Effects Analysis” (PFMEA) method. The control is planned using a “Control Plan” and the operators are instructed through a “Technical Instruction”.
The purpose with the manufacturing technical information solution is to generalise as much as possible to a family level. The method of manufacture can be developed and proven once and then be applied to other products. This will also be beneficial when it comes to improvements as it can be applied to the family rather than single components.
Information that cannot be generalised to a family level will stay at a part specific level.
This can be things such as detailed fixture design, tools, operation drawings, process data like feeds and speeds, NC/CMM-program etcetera.
Proposed solution for data, information and knowledge management is divided into five areas; 1) Manufacturing method and intent report, 2) Method of manufacture geometry, 3) Component buy off sheet, 4) Communication sheet and 5) Technical Instruction.
The idea with the proposed solution is to save the information and intent behind decisions and the planning of the method of manufacture. It is also to improve the communication of this information.
Abstract in Swedish
”Manufacturing technical package” är samlingsnamnet för den tekniska information som definierar tilverkningsmetoden för en produkt. Den ska innehålla nödvändig information för att uppnå samt bibehålla kvalitets- och kostnadsmål men samtidigt uppfylla
konstruktionens avsikt. Efter en studie utförd på Rolls-Royce visade det sig att detta inte uppfylldes och att det inte fanns någon detaljerad standard på företaget som reglerade denna information. Målet med detta examensarbete var att definiera ett förslag till en ny standard för Rolls-Royce tillverkningstekniska information för att lösa dessa problem.
För att nå målet tillsattes en projektgrupp på fyra personer som bestod av författarna av denna rapport, Allan Elton och Audrey McCallum. Projektet har utförts cykliskt där varje varv följt Planera-Gör-Studera-Lär cykeln. En omfattande studie där alla produktionsorter i Storbritannien visade att det fanns en stor variation i hur olika ingenjörer och
operatörer arbetade. Undersökningen visade också stor variation i dokumentationen som finns kring tillverkningen samt att kommunikationen mellan olika funktioner var
bristfällig. Som ett led i utvecklingen av en ny standard utfördes benchmarking inom såväl utanför företaget. Fordonsindustrin har varit ett föredöme och främst ”Advanced Product Quality Planning” (APQP) och ”Toyota Production System” (TPS) har studerats för att ge idéer. Även litteratur inom kvalitet, lean production och produktionsplanering har granskats.
Kraven för den nya standarden är att den ska möjliggöra att produktionen uppnår och bibehåller målen för kvalitet, kostnad och konstruktionens avsikt. För att försäkra detta är den föreslagna standarden uppdelad i två delar; 1) Innehåll och struktur och 2) Förbättringar av data-, informations- och kunskapshantering.
Innehållet och strukturen av den tekniska tillverkningsinformationen är uppdelad i tre delar; Processnivå, Familjenivå och Produktspecifik nivå. Den första delen innefattar kontroll av tillverkningsprocessen. Detta ska åstadkommas genom att analysera och identifiera processens variabler med en ”Process Failure Mode and Effects Analysis”
(PFMEA), planera styrningen med en kontrollplan och instruera styrningen till operatören genom arbetsinstruktioner.
Syftet med den tekniska tillverkningsinformationen är att generalisera så mycket som möjligt till en familjenivå. Tillverkningsmetoden kan testas och bevisas en gång och sedan appliceras på alla produkter som introduceras i familjen. Det ger även en fördel då det kommer till förbättringar. Istället för att förbättra tillverkningsmetoden för en
produkt, kan den appliceras för alla produkter.
Information som inte kan generaliseras för en familj måste vara produktspecifik. Detta kan vara saker som detaljerad fixturdesign, verktyg, operationsritning, processdata som matning och skärhastighet, NC/CMM-program etcetera.
När det gäller den föreslagna lösningen för data-, informations- och kunskapshantering är den indelad i fem områden; 1) Tillverkningsmetod- och avsiktsrapport, 2)
Tillverkningsmetodgeometri, 3) Överenskommelse för produktspecifika dimensioner, 4) Kommunikationsblankett och 5) Arbetsinstruktion.
Idén med den föreslagna lösningen är att spara informationen och avsikten bakom beslut för planering av tillverkningsmetoden, men även att förbättra kommunikationen och spridningen av denna information.
Index
1 INTRODUCTION... 1
1.1 DEFINITION OF MANUFACTURING TECHNICAL PACKAGE... 1
1.2 ISSUES... 2
1.3 OBJECTIVES... 3
1.4 SCOPE... 3
2 ROLLS-ROYCE ... 5
3 METHOD ... 7
3.1 PROJECT STRATEGY... 7
3.2 INVESTIGATING THE CURRENT STATE... 9
3.2.1 Written documents... 10
3.2.2 Interviews... 10
3.2.3 Observations ... 11
3.2.4 Data analysis... 11
3.3 INVESTIGATING THE FUTURE STATE... 12
3.4 SUGGEST A SOLUTION TO THE ISSUE... 12
3.4.1 Literature review... 12
3.4.2 Benchmarking ... 13
3.4.3 Workshops... 13
3.4.4 Pilots... 14
3.4.5 Final result... 15
4 THEORETICAL FRAME OF REFERENCE ... 17
4.1 INTRODUCTION TO THE CHAPTER... 17
4.2 MANUFACTURING... 17
4.3 QUALITY... 19
4.4 VARIATION OR STABLE PROCESS... 20
4.5 LEAN PRODUCTION... 21
4.6 STANDARDISATION... 22
4.7 DATA,INFORMATION AND KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT... 23
4.7.1 Knowledge and information transformation... 24
4.7.2 Communication of information ... 25
4.7.3 Toyota way of communication... 26
4.7.4 Lesson learned and sharing information... 26
5 CURRENT STATE AND ANALYSIS... 29
5.1 INTRODUCTION TO THE CHAPTER... 29
5.2 BACKGROUND AND CURRENT SITUATION OF ROLLS-ROYCE... 30
5.3 ROLLS-ROYCE CURRENT STANDARDS AND PROCEDURES... 30
5.4 CURRENT MANUFACTURING TECHNICAL PACKAGE STANDARD... 32
5.4.1 Document properties... 33
5.4.2 Execution system... 34
5.4.3 Work instructions... 35
5.5 METHOD OF MANUFACTURE... 36
5.6 COMMUNICATION... 38
5.6.1 Manufacturing Engineer - Manufacturing Engineer ... 39
5.6.2 Manufacturing Engineer - Design Engineer ... 39
5.6.3 Manufacturing Engineer - Operator... 40
5.6.4 Manufacturing Engineer - Supplier ... 40
5.7 LABOUR TURNOVER... 41
5.8 SUMMARY OF CURRENT STATE ISSUES... 42
A Standardised Approach to Technical Manufacturing
Information Index
6 FORECAST AND ANALYSIS... 43
6.1 INCREASE OF DEMAND... 43
6.2 COMPUTER AIDED PROCESS PLANNING,CAPP ... 44
7 REQUIREMENTS FOR SOLUTION ... 45
8 SUGGESTION OF NEW STANDARD... 47
7.1 MANUFACTURING INTENT AND TECHNICAL INFORMATION... 47
7.1.1 Process level... 48
7.1.2 Family level... 50
7.1.3 Part specific level... 51
7.2 DATA,INFORMATION AND KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT... 52
7.2.1 Method of manufacture and intent report... 52
7.2.2 Method of Manufacture Geometry... 53
7.2.3 Component Feature Buy Off sheet... 54
7.2.4 Communication sheet ... 54
7.2.5 Technical Instruction... 54
8 DISCUSSION... 57
8.1 RESEARCH STRATEGY... 57
8.2 RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY... 59
8.3 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY... 60
8.4 FUTURE WORK... 60
8.5 GENERALISATION... 60
9 RECOMMENDATION... 62
9.1 PROCESS LEVEL... 63
9.2 FAMILY LEVEL... 64
9.3 PART LEVEL... 64
9.4 COMMUNICATION... 64 REFERENCES
APPENDICES
1. Toyota Writing Tips for A3 Reports
2. SELLS Writing Tips for Lesson Learned Document.
3. Process Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (PFMEA) 4. Control Plan
5. Method of Manufacture and Intent Report 6. Shop Floor Layout
7. Technical Instruction
8. Dimensional Characteristic Matrix 9. Method of Manufacture Geometry 10. Component Feature Buy Off Sheet 11. Communication Sheet
1 Introduction
This section begins with the definition of the manufacturing technical package, continues with issues identified by previous surveys and finishes with the objectives and scope of this thesis.
1.1 DEFINITION OF MANUFACTURING TECHNICAL PACKAGE
There is plenty of information that is necessary for a manufacturing process to produce a part. Tools, fixtures, machines to use, required resources and instructions to the
operators are only a few things that need to be defined for each part (Schey, 1987;
Kalpakjian & Schmid, 2006). One purpose of this manufacturing information is to clearly define the method of manufacture, which is one of many legal requirements that several of the manufacturing industries have to fulfil. Another important purpose for generating and defining this information is that parts can achieve and sustain targets within quality, cost and design intent. Ideally, if you pick up this package of information you would know exactly how to manufacture the part. At Rolls-Royce, which mainly is a manufacturer in the aerospace industry, this technical information that is specific for one part is called the
‘Manufacturing technical package’.
One way to describe the method of manufacture would be to look at the manufacturing instructions and other documents given to the operator on the shop floor. At Rolls-Royce there is a common perception that the manufacturing technical package is equivalent to the instructions, but then forgotten is the work and information produced while the method of manufacture is planned and proved. This information cannot necessarily be
A Standardised Approach to Technical Manufacturing
Information Introduction
2
Included in the Rolls-Royce manufacturing technical package is potentially everything that is generated during a new part introduction. When the part has been released for production it should be continuously improved during the whole lifecycle for the part. The Rolls-Royce Quality Management System defines the minimum elements for inclusion in the manufacturing technical package, and includes things such as condition of material supply, operational sequence, machines, processes, tooling and other process specific information. (Rolls-Royce, 2007)
1.2 ISSUES
Identified in previous surveys at Rolls-Royce (Hunt, 2006), there is a significant variation between the existing documentations that are included in the manufacturing technical packages across the company. Even if there is a standard within the quality management system that defines what it should contain, different manufacturing sites have developed their own detailed local standard. Because the corporate standards are defined on a high level, there is a variation between sites and this has resulted in difficulties to share information and best practice. This also makes it difficult to transfer work and labour, as new manufacturing technical packages need to be created if the part is moved from one site to another (Rolls-Royce, 2007).
In recent time, quality issues within the manufacturing function has also been identified because of incapable processes. This has by previous projects been related back to the technical documentation, as the method of manufacture not has been completely proven and documented. The result of this is that a lot of valuable resources are spent on reworking and scraping parts (Rolls-Royce, 2007). One of the intentions with the manufacturing technical package is to build up and define a stable and capable
manufacturing method (Rolls-Royce Quality Management System, 2007). This has not always been the case and there is a common view within the management at Rolls- Royce, that:
“Today's manufacturing technical package’s structure and standard does not contain the methodologies essential for delivery of a stable, capable and cost effective manufacture.”
To tackle quality issues within the company, Rolls-Royce has decided to establish an extensive ‘Manufacturing Quality Improvement Programme’ (MQIP). One pillar of this is to improve and standardise the manufacturing technical packages to undertake the above mentioned issues (the variation of the current manufacturing technical packages and the incapable processes). The work from this pillar has resulted in this thesis.
1.3 OBJECTIVES
The objective of the thesis is to create a proposal for a new standard defining the requirements and content of the manufacturing technical package, to ensure that each part will achieve and sustain quality, cost and design intent.
To achieve this objective the purpose of this thesis (set by Rolls-Royce) is to:
• Investigate the current state of the manufacturing technical package within Rolls-Royce.
• Identify other issues related to the current manufacturing technical packages.
• Benchmark other industries to identify best practice outside Rolls-Royce.
• Develop a proposal for a new manufacturing technical package standard.
1.4 SCOPE
The developed standard will only include the structure and content of the manufacturing technical package and exclude the method it is generated by and by whom it is done.
Focus of the project will be from a manufacturing point of view and exclude the design phase of the product.
4
2 Rolls-Royce
In this chapter the company will be briefly introduced.
The year was 1904 and the first Rolls-Royce car had been sold in London. It was
manufactured by ‘Royce Limited’ and exclusively sold by ‘C S Rolls & Co’. Because the car sold well, in March 1906 Henry Royce and Charles Rolls decided to form ‘Rolls-Royce Company’ and started to manufacture and sell a six-cylinder car, known as the Silver Ghost. (Rolls-Royce, 2007)
Since then, through acquisitions and mergers, Rolls-Royce has become a significant supplier of power generation equipment to a range of different industries and markets.
Rather than cars, which were sold to BMW at 1998, the current Rolls-Royce product portfolio contains mainly gas turbines but also industrial fuel cells and marine propellers.
The company spans in four global markets; civil aerospace, defence aerospace, marine and energy, see Figure 1. The company has rapidly and substantial gained market shares over recent years, and has now a total of 54,000 gas turbines in service worldwide.
(Rolls-Royce, 2007)
A Standardised Approach to Technical Manufacturing
Information Rolls-Royce
6
Civil Aerospace
Defence
Aerospace Marine Energy
Fans Compressors Turbines
Transmission Structure & Drive Combustion & Casings Rotatives
Indianapolis Manufacturing
Manufacturing Engineering
Operations Production Planning &
Control
Engineering
Office of the Chief Executive
Group Executive
Support to Group Executive
Controls
Installations
Supply Chain Units
Customer Facing Business Units
Component Services
General Machining
Financial Services
Purchasing Supply Chain Units
Business Development
HR Finance Quality
Figure 1. Simplified organisation chart over Rolls-Royce Gas Turbines Operation
Rolls-Royce has a broad customer base comprising around 600 airlines, 4,000 corporate and utility aircraft and helicopter operators, 160 armed forces and over 2,000 marine customers, including 70 navies. The company has energy customers in nearly 150 countries. Rolls-Royce employs around 38,000 people, of which 23,000 are in the United Kingdom. Forty per cent of its employees are based outside the United Kingdom -
including 5,000 in the rest of Europe and 8,000 in North America. (Rolls-Royce, 2007) The large installed base of engines generates demand for the provision of services. A key element of the company's strategy is to maximize services revenues, which have
increased by 60 per cent over the past five years by the provision of a comprehensive portfolio of services. Annual sales total nearly £7.4 billion, of which 53 per cent are services revenues. The order book is more than £26 billion at 2006, which, together with demand for services, provides visibility as to future activity levels. (Rolls-Royce, 2007)
3 Method
During the project different methods have been applied to handle the scope and
objectives. In this section some of the main methods are explained and put into content of the project.
3.1 PROJECT STRATEGY
Initially a project group was set up consisting of the project leader Mr Allan Elton
(Manager Strategic Operations), Mrs Audrey McCallum (Project Lead) and the authors of this thesis. The project group reported on a quarterly basis to Dr Mike Percival (Head of Manufacturing Engineering Excellence) to make sure the project was moving forward as planned.
The project was carried out in a cyclic structure, where the different moments of the cycle have been worked through several times. It can be seen as many cyclic circles and every turn takes the project deeper and becomes more detailed. The purpose of working this way is according to Ranhagen (2003) that the development is carried out step by step and it is possible to add new knowledge, experience and demands throughout the whole project. The method used for each turn can be described by the Deming cycle, also known as the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycle seen in Figure 2. The different stages are described as:
A Standardised Approach to Technical Manufacturing
Information Method
8
Plan Identify an opportunity and plan for a change.
Do Execute the plan, by taking small steps during controlled circumstances.
Study Use data to analyse the results of the change and determine whether it made a difference.
Act. Take action to standardise or improve the process.
P P
PPllaann
D D
DoDo
S S
StStuuddyy
A A
AcActt
Figure 2. Deming’s cycle with its four phases, Plan – Do – Study – Act inspired by Bergman & Klefsjö (2004)
The collection of information has mostly been carried out with a qualitative approach rather then a quantitative.
A qualitative approach refers to situations where you work with the validity and reliability continuously through the study. Quantitative approaches are those where you make measurements using well defined measurement tools. Assuming that the theory behind doing the measurement is valid, a well developed quantitative tool should give
information in which there is confidence. (Miles & Huberman, 1994)
The aim of a quantitative approach is to classify features, count them, and construct statistical models in an attempt to explain what is observed. A qualitative approach should be used when the researcher only roughly knows what he/she is looking for and when the data is in form of words, pictures or objects. (Miles & Huberman, 1994)
According to Miles and Huberman (1994), the strength of qualitative data is that it is rich and holistic with strong potential for revealing complexity nested in a real context.
3.2 INVESTIGATING THE CURRENT STATE
To understand the situation of how Rolls-Royce works with technical information today, the first turn in the PDSA-cycle was to understand the currant state of the manufacturing technical package that exists in the various plants. Initially a plan was set up to collect the data, which afterwards could be carried out in a small scale. The data was then analysed and based upon this the next improvement step could be planned and rolled out. It took many loops in the circle until the collected data was satisfying and the improvement phase of the standard could be started.
To investigate the actual state of the information in the manufacturing technical package, a major survey was carried out. It covered all manufacturing sites in the United Kingdom, Rolls-Royce Corporation (North America) and Rolls-Royce Deutschland (Germany). Five of the seven sites in United Kingdom were physically visited, but because this is time and cost consuming activities, two of the sites were only contacted by email and phone in an initial phase of the project.
The main reasons for the physical visits were to get an understanding and an overview of the site but also to build a network of contacts. These contacts were later used to gather the documentation and procedures specific to the area. In the end of the data gathering phase, the network of people covered across the whole organisation, from company seniors to shop floor operators. The trips around United Kingdom were also used to communicate the work and to get people encouraged to participate. To make the final result successful it is important to encourage co-workers to participate and actively affect the improvement work (Bergman & Klefsjö, 2004).
Because English is not the mother tongue of the authors it also felt better to physically visit the plants in the first phase instead of trying to explain the questions by phone. The further the project went on more and more interviews were mail or phone based.
Qualitative data grows out of three kinds of data collection; interviews, observations and written documents. Interviews yield direct quotations from people about their
experiences, feelings, opinions, and knowledge. The data from observations consist of detailed descriptions of people’s activities, behaviours, actions, and a full range of interpersonal and organisational processes that are part of observable human
experience. Document analysis includes studying excerpts, quotations, or entire passages from organisational, clinical, or program records; memoranda and correspondence;
official publications and reports; personal diaries; and open-ended written responses to
A Standardised Approach to Technical Manufacturing
Information Method
10 3.2.1 Written documents
The purpose with the data collection was to get a picture of how the manufacturing technical package was defined at each site. What did they include and exclude in their packages? Some of the collecting work was already completed by an earlier project but information had to be complemented. This mostly included work instructions for the operators and was carried out during the above mentioned site visits.
Information around the currant manufacturing technical package was collected from all manufacturing sites and included various types of operations. The reason for including all sites and different kinds of operations was to get the whole picture of the company, not only how it looks like in one plant. Processes have different needs and how to instruct a machining operation can differ a lot from an assembly operation. A minimum of one manufacturing technical package for every type of operation was collected from each site. In some sites more were collected if they differed a lot from each other. Most of the documentation was collected by asking manufacturing engineers to provide the project group with one or a couple of technical packages. However, the project group also
randomly collected some themselves. Over hundred documents were finally collected and represented all kinds of operations such as machining, inspection, assembly etcetera.
The collected documents were everything from instructions, drawings, first article
inspection reports, part plans to shop floor layouts. Local standards of how to compile the manufacturing technical package were also collected.
3.2.2 Interviews
During each site visit interviews were held with mostly manufacturing and laboratory engineers, but also operators were interviewed. The number of the interviewed people differed a lot between the manufacturing sites, mostly depending on how much time that was spent in the area. The difference could be as big as from fifteen to sixty people. Most of them were chosen by the Manufacturing Engineering Manager to represent the plant but people were also interviewed randomly or because they wanted to participate. Most of the interviews were unstructured and the main purpose was to get the local definition of what a technical package consisted of. An unstructured interview is when the subject is pre decided but no questions are planned in advanced (Patton, 2001). Based upon this, questions were asked regarding responsibilities, methods, involved people, and records etcetera when documentation was created or changed. Interviews were held both with one person as well as in groups. The main reason for using unstructured interviews was to create a relaxed atmosphere and make the interviews more flexible. The questions also differed because most of the work was to investigate how the local plant worked
with manufacturing technical packages and this often resulted in group discussions around the subject rather than traditional interviews.
Another question raised during the interviews was if there was anything missing in the currant definition of the manufacturing technical package to ensure that the cost, quality and design intent targets are met. Questions were asked regarding experiences from other companies, personal ideas, and maybe if something in the current standard was not even necessary.
3.2.3 Observations
During the visits time were spent to observe the operators and engineers when they were completing their daily work to understand the differences between plants. It was also a good opportunity to get an understanding of the manufacturing process and to learn more about the products.
The project group also studied work instructions, drawings, and standards to see if they were understandable for a co-worker that normally did not work with a certain operation.
This could be a member of the project group, an engineer or an operator from another plant. Typical questions were; “Do you understand the document?”, “Can it be
misunderstand?” and “What can be done do to improve it?”
The project group was based close to the shop floor, which made it easy to observe the daily work and ask questions if something needed to be clarified.
3.2.4 Data analysis
The content of different manufacturing technical packages used across the business units was analysed. The analysis was based upon how well they fulfilled the requirements of the company standards Group Quality Procedure (GQP) C.4.56 The concurrent
component definition and RPS900 Technical control of manufacturing processes, which dictates what the technical package shall include on a high level basis. The analysis also included the requirements included in the GQP P.8.6 Control of documents, which is in regards of document properties such as document number, copyright information, date, issue number etcetera. All the required information was listed in an Excel spread sheet and a box was ticked off for every fulfilled criteria. This was completed through a
quantitative approach. Diagrams, graphs and tables were used to visualise how well the documents were complying towards the standard. It was then easy to see if any
information category were missing.
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Information Method
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To analyse the different methodologies another approach was used. Good practice from sites were written down and compared to working methods used at other plants. The ideas were spread to see if one way was more usable then the other. Feedback and opinions were taken back to the project group and best practice was captured.
3.3 INVESTIGATING THE FUTURE STATE
By analysing the future state it will give more accuracy to the suggested solution since it can handle some of the changes that will occur in the near future. To be as prepared as possible, unstructured interviews were held with colleagues within the Central
Manufacturing Engineering Team.
Because the project leader was well aware of the latest information in the company regarding strategy and major changes, it felt that most of the necessary information already existed within the group.
3.4 SUGGEST A SOLUTION TO THE ISSUE
Based upon the data analysis, the work of defining a new standard could begin and the identified issues had to be prevented to occur. To solve these issues literature were studied, benchmarking carried out and people were interviewed. This was an ongoing process throughout the whole project, plan how to approach the issue (Plan), try the method (Do), study the outcome (Study) and finally identify the next step (Act). For every turn in the PDSA-cycle the solutions become more detailed. Each fraction of the suggested solution had its own turns in the PDSA-cycle.
3.4.1 Literature review
Literatures have been studied during the whole project. Most of the information have been found on the company’s intranet and contains information like standards, routines and internal training material. Books at the library in Nottingham Trent University have also been a well of wisdom; mostly books regarding lean manufacturing, quality and production planning have been studied. The electronic book provider Books24x7 (2007) has also been used to find relevant reference literature. Key words used when searching reference literature have been ‘production planning’, ‘quality planning’, ‘Toyota
Production System’, ‘manufacturing’, ‘quality management’, ‘standardisation’, ‘qualitative data´, ‘information’ and ‘lesson learned’ as well as combinations of these words.
3.4.2 Benchmarking
Benchmarking has frequently been used during the whole project to identify the best practice within the organisation itself but also of other manufacturing industries. Because Rolls-Royce is a big company utilising many different methodologies, the initial phase of the solution development was focused on internal benchmarking. The main reason for this is because it is easy to access plants within the own organisation. The next step was to understand the best practice at other companies, but because many of the employees at Rolls-Royce have a background from other companies, the external benchmarking was only conducted through interviews with these people. The companies were Ford, Land Rover, Jaguar, Toyota and Perkins.
If one were to select a company that is exemplary of excellence in automobile
manufacturing, it would probably be Toyota (Krajewski & Ritzman, 2005). As a result of this, many of the ideas within this thesis have been inspired by Toyota and the methods described in Jeffery K Likers (2004) book ‘The Toyota Way’ has been frequently used to develop the suggested solutions. Even if the aerospace and automotive industries do have differences, the methods have been considered as useful.
The Advanced Product Quality Planning (APQP) does cover up many of the American car company’s methodology for manufacturing planning and process control. It can be seen as a framework of procedures and techniques to develop products in industry, particular the automotive industry (Chrysler, Ford & General Motors, 2005). This was realised in a late phase of the solution development and it was mainly used for comparison. Because the suggested solution in this thesis was already much in line with the APQP, only some minor adjustments were made to improve the final result.
3.4.3 Workshops
Throughout the whole project workshops have been held to keep the involved people at every plant updated and at the same time have the opportunity to affect the suggested solution. Small exercises have been held to encourage as many as possible to actively participate in the workshops. It is important that the employees who are actually doing the work are actively involved in making the improvement (Krajewski & Ritzman, 2005).
In the beginning, the definition of a manufacturing technical package consisted of a blank page of paper and the project group tried together to identify the requirements of
information through discussions and brainstorming sessions. Once the development of the solution was initiated, brainstorming workshops were held on a regularly basis with
A Standardised Approach to Technical Manufacturing
Information Method
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company from the Executive vice President of Manufacturing Engineering to operators out in the various plants. This has been done to involve as many people as possible and keep everyone up to speed with the development but also to get their input of ideas and thoughts. The number of people in the workshops has differed a lot depending on the scope for the workshop. In general, the further the project continued more peopled participated each time and included from five to thirty people each time. Workshops including a various amount of people have been held for every turn in the PDSA-cycle and sometimes even more frequently to continuously improve the next turn.
3.4.4 Pilots
To make sure the suggested solutions are working and are possible to carry out, the project group itself has tested them through several pilots. These have both been
completed by the project group but also driven by the different plants with support from the project group. All solutions have been tried under normal circumstances and
according to the involved manufacturing engineers proven to be beneficial to the manufacturing process.
The major pilot was carried out in Glasgow and involved approximately fifteen people, in all levels from Chief of Manufacturing Engineering Compressors to a couple of operators.
The idea was to pilot the whole solution but it ended up in fragments of the whole solution because of time limitations. The total pilot was carried out during a time period of three months. The main reason for choosing the Glasgow site as pilot area was because they suffered from a big amount of non-conformances related to the subject of this thesis. It had also been a change in the management that believed more in the project then the old management.
During the same time as the pilot in Glasgow was carried out, smaller pilots were also running in other plants to investigate how well the new proposed manufacturing technical package worked. In total around twenty-five pilots were carried out during this project.
The suggestion of the new standard has been written down in a group quality procedure (GQP) draft, which is a written standard in the Rolls-Royce Quality Management System.
The outcome from the pilots and workshops has been used as input for next drafts. It has also been sent to various experts within the company for further input.
3.4.5 Final result
The final result of the thesis ended up as a suggestion to a new standard for Rolls-Royce.
The content was based on the current standard, however with inputs from the analysis and pilots of the various manufacturing technical packages across Rolls-Royce. Good practice from the business units and other companies have been copied and in some cases modified to suit all plants.
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4 Theoretical Frame of Reference
In this section the theoretical frame of reference will be presented. It will go through the basics and further details can be found through referenced sources.
4.1 INTRODUCTION TO THE CHAPTER
The content of this chapter is meant to give the reader of this thesis a basic background to the subject of manufacturing, as this is the area that the work has been around. It also includes the subject of quality as this is one of the main and important issues at Rolls-Royce. Because another of the issues identified was regarding incapable process, a section will cover the subject of variation and stable processes. One section is about standardisation as identified by a previous survey (Hunt, 2006) was the variation
between the different sites in the documentation. To get influences from a business that are known as efficient, lean production theories and Toyota Production System (TPS) have been studied. Finally theories about data, information and knowledge management is presented in the last section, as the manufacturing technical package is all about technical information.
4.2 MANUFACTURING
The word ‘manufacturing’ origins from Latin ‘manu factus’, meaning made by hand.
According to Kalpakjian & Schmid (2006) the word manufacture first appeared in 1567 and manufacturing in 1683 but Schey (1987) points out that manufacturing has been practiced for several thousands of years, beginning with the production of stone, ceramic
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and metallic articles. Manufacturing in its comprehensive sense is the process of
converting raw materials into products. A product is normally built up by several of parts, for example a chair (product) is built up by legs, seat and possibly a back-rest (parts).
The words production and manufacturing are synonyms and are often interchangeable in their use. This definition of manufacturing reveals little about the real complexity of the problem. Schey (1987) adds to the definition:
“A series of interrelated activities and operations involving design, material selection, planning, production, quality assurance, management and marketing of discrete consumer and durable goods.”
Manufacturing is generally described as a complex process involving a wide variety of resources and activities. Similar to Schey (1987), Kalpakjian & Schmid (2006) include following things in a manufacturing process:
• Product design, first phase of a product is to be designed.
• Process planning, before production can start all processes within the method of manufacture needs to be planned and defined.
• Machinery and tooling is necessary to cut the material and change the geometry of the raw material to become a part.
• Materials, a part needs to fulfil design intent when it comes to functionality.
The material needs to be chosen to meet these requirements.
• Purchasing, raw material, machines, tools and a lot of other equipment needs to be bought into the factory.
• Manufacturing, the function that changes raw material into the finished part.
• Production control, to ensure that the production of the part is running according to plans.
• Marketing, to capture the interest of the customers the product needs to be marketed.
• Sales, the function that sales the product to the customers.
• Shipping makes sure that the product is arriving to the customer.
• Customer service deals with the customers’ requests and ensures they receive required service.
• Support services, after the whole finished product has been sold the product might need to be supported through out the life cycle of the product.
During the production planning and development of the method of manufacture there is plenty of technical information that is generated. This includes everything from what tools and fixture to use to material analysis that confirms the condition of the material after it has been processed. As stated in the company standard “JES208 Component traceability and manufacturing history” all this information is important and need to be defined and documented to ensure the integrity of the parts.
4.3 QUALITY
The word ‘quality’ comes from Latin ‘qualitas’ and means property in the sense of property of a product. Today the word has a different meaning depending on who is asked. Crosby (1979), defined quality as “conformance of requirements” while the American Joseph Juran in 1951, said it is “fitness for use”. Bergman & Klefsjö (2004) have stepped even closer to the customer and defined quality as “Quality for a product is its ability to satisfy, and ideally exceed, the customers’ demand and expectation”. At Rolls-Royce and in this thesis, quality is defined as a combination of all this as the end customer, the aeroplane manufacturer for example, set the requirements for
performance of the engine to ensure the engine is fit for its use on the aeroplane. The design engineers are then cascading this down to each of the parts’ design. Other customer requirements are also imbedded in the finished part definition, but these are internal requirements to ensure that each of the parts can be manufactured and
assembled together. Quality at a manufacturing level is mainly measured by how well the part features are conforming to the tolerance requirements stated on the part drawings.
To ensure that the quality targets within Rolls-Royce are continuously up to date, they are regularly reviewed with the customers.
Because the lack of quality and solving quality related issues are very costly compared to preventing the issues from the beginning (Juran, 1988), quality has today got an
important focus for most profit interested organisation. According to Dale (2003) the cost of poor quality and not getting it right first time, ranges from five to 25 percent of a manufacturing organisations annual sales turnover. Many companies are integrating quality in their daily business and this is often referred as Total Quality Management (TQM). According to Bergman & Klefsjö (2004) any businesses way of working should be based upon a foundation built up by “Decision on facts”, “Work with processes”,
“Continuous improvements”, “Prerequisite for participation” and “Customer focus”.
Bergman & Klefsjö (2004) have illustrative placed four of these five bullets as the
cornerstones of the quality work foundation with the fifth, ‘customer focus’, in the centre as shown in Figure 3.
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processes
Decision on facts
Continuous improvements
Prerequisite for participation Customer Focus
Figure 3. Cornerstones of the quality work foundation with customer in focus, inspired by Bergman & Klefsjö (2004).
4.4 VARIATION OR STABLE PROCESS
According to Bergman & Klefsjö (2004), in every process such as production process, administrative process or any other kind of process, there will be variation caused by variables. According to the Swedish national encyclopaedia (Nationalencyklopedin, 2007), a variable is a quantity that may assume any one of a set of values. Bergman & Klefsjö (2004) explains that the variation can be caused by unclear routines and instructions, human differences or lack of information. Other reasons they mention are changes or disturbance in form of tool wear, environmental influences or human errors. It can also be caused by variation in the raw material, parts or subsystems from suppliers. These process variables are, by Montgomery (2005), divided into two areas, natural and special causes. The special cause variables can also be divided into two categories, which are controllable and uncontrollable. Controllable variables are such as; temperature, pressure and feed rate while uncontrollable are for example properties of raw material from an external supplier or environmental factors. Figure 4 illustrates the relationship of process, special cause variables and the process output.
To achieve an efficient production it is important to achieve stable processes by
controlling the special cause variables. According to Montgomery (2005) the root cause of the special cause variation needs to be identified and what effect they have on the process and the output need to be understood. Finally, the variation needs to be
eliminated or controlled, and only when the process can meet the targets and achieve a result that lies within tolerances, it is described as capable (Bergman & Klefsjö, 2004;
Montgomery 2005).
PROCESS
Controllable Variables
Uncontrollable Variables
Process Output
Figure 4. Illustration of the relationship between process, special cause variables and the process output, inspired by Rolls-Royce Production System (RRPS).
4.5 LEAN PRODUCTION
In 1990 a new term was founded when the Toyota Production System and other similar Japanese producers’ way of working were described. They were said to have a “lean production”. It was lean because it used less of everything compared to mass production, half the human effort in the factory, half the manufacturing space, half the investment in tools, half the engineering hours to develop a new product in half the time. (Womack, Jones & Roos, 1990)
The Toyota Production System is comprehensively described in ‘The Toyota Way’ (Liker, 2004) and it is based upon 14 principles: 1) Base your management decisions on a long- term philosophy, even at the expense of short-term financial goals, 2) Create continuous process flow to bring problems to the surface, 3) Use “pull” systems to avoid
overproduction, 4) Level out workload, 5) Build a culture of stopping to fix problems, to get quality right the first time, 6) Standardise tasks are the foundation for continuous improvement and employee empowerment, 7) Use visual control so no problems are hidden, 8) Use only reliable, thoroughly tested technology that serves your people and processes, 9) Grow leaders who thoroughly understand the work, live the philosophy, and teach it to others, 10) Develop exceptional people and teams who follow your company's philosophy, 11) Respect your extended network of partners and suppliers by challenging them and helping them improve, 12) Go and see for yourself to thoroughly understand the situation, 13) Make decisions slowly by consensus, thoroughly
considering all options, implement decisions rapidly, and 14) Become a learning organisation through relentless reflection and continuous improvement.
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According to the Swedish online dictionary Nationalencyklopedin (2007), standardisation is to create systematic rules and structure with a purpose to achieve technical and economical solutions on recurrent issues. It could be anything from the distance of a railway track, the direction of the shreds of a screw, the metric system to the structure and content of a manufacturing technical package.
Without a process that has been standardised, is stable and functional, it is impossible to improve and measure an improvement (Liker, 2004). According to Brunsson & Jacobsson (1998) there are both benefits and disadvantages with standardisation. They write about and describe four general groups of benefits:
Effective information transfer is normally achieved if a standard is followed because the receiver of the information knows better how to relate to the information sent to him. If the format to transfer the information is not recognised, it can more easily be found if a standard has seen used. There will also be a comfort by the fact that a standard has been used.
Method for coordination is another benefit according to Brunsson & Jacobsson (1998). To coordinate processes, people or basically anything it needs to be compatible with each other. Standardising it from the beginning best carries this out. An example would be a wall socket and the plug that need to be standardised to work together in a safe way.
Simplification can be achieved by standardisation. Less variation together with coordination and structure makes things simpler. This creates a better overview and understanding of the subject.
Best practice can be established. If everyone involved working with something have agreed that a certain way is the ‘best practice’, there will be no argument about it.
According to Liker (2004), once everyone is happy with a standard, the focus of improving it can be coordinated easier and the standard is a solid starting point.
Even if there are benefits there will also be some disadvantages with standardisation, even if they are not as obvious and many. The most mentioned are aligning and stabilising. Even if one purpose of standardisation is to align and stabilise people and processes to work in the same way, doing this can also reduce the creativity and
motivation of the work. For this reason, when implementing standards it is important to emphasise that it is not static but open for improvements. (Brunsson & Jacobsson, 1998)
4.7 DATA,INFORMATION AND KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
The difficulty with the manufacturing technical package is about how the technical information is managed and retained. According to Oakland (1993), a keystone to success in any company is how data, information and knowledge are understood and managed. Davenport & Prusak (1998) explain that there is a direct correlation between these categories and the transfer from one into another is an important step to
successfully retain and secure information in a company. They define the different categories as following:
Data has no meaning by itself but only describes a part of something without judgment, understanding or guidance of how to use it.
Information on the other hand, has an intention to change the receivers’ points of views and have an effect on the judgement or behaviour. Information is created when the creator states in what purpose data have been collected. The creator also adds the meaning to the data by categorising it and taking away errors. However, in the end it is not the creator of the information, but the receiver, who decides whether or not it is information.
Knowledge origins from information in the same way as information origins from data.
However, for information to become knowledge it needs to be processed by someone in aspects such as:
• Evaluation – How is this information different in certain circumstances compared to other?
• Consequence analysis – What impact does the information have on decision and actions?
• Correlation – How does this knowledge relate to other’s knowledge?
• Conversation – What do others think of the information?
The European Union project VIVACE (2007) has in a similar way as Davenport & Prusak (1998) described the relation between data, information and knowledge in a visual pyramid, see Figure 5. The figure does also include a higher level, competence or wisdom, as when decision is made upon knowledge and experiences.
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Wisdom
Knowledge
Information
Data
+ Analyse + Use
+ Experience
Data in content, having meaning and structure
Information in context, understanding Actions &
decisions
Increasing human competent
Raw facts & figures that can be analysed
Figure 5. Knowledge hierarchy as described by VIVACE, 2007.
4.7.1 Knowledge and information transformation
There are two dimensions that knowledge and information can be described in; tacit and explicit. The tacit knowledge can be described as what sits within an individual and are not directly accessible. Explicit knowledge is something that can be accessed and obtained, for example knowledge in a book or at a University course. To group it in this way originated from Polanyi (1966), but Nonaka & Takeuchi (1995) further explain the concept. They mean that human knowledge is created and developed through social interactions and alternate between tacit and explicit. This interaction is explained in the Socialisation-Externalisation-Combination-Internalisation (SECI) model as showed in Figure 6.
Tacit Knowledge
Tacit Knowledge
Socialisation Externalisation
Combination Internalisation
Tacit Knowledge Tacit Knowledge
Explicit Knowledge
Explicit Knowledge
Explicit Knowledge Explicit Knowledge
Figure 6. The SECI model describes the interaction and transformation between explicit and tacit knowledge.
In the SECI model, this interaction and transformation occurs in four different ways;
Socialisation, Externalisation, Combination and Internalisation. Nonaka & Takeuchi (1995) define and describe them as following:
Socialisation is the process of transferring current tacit knowledge to new tacit knowledge by interaction between people who are sharing experiences. Example of this is when a new person starts at a job and then shadows a mentor who has been working with it before.
Externalisation is when the tacit knowledge is transferred into words and become explicit.
One example is when individuals put words to the knowledge and share it with others thorough dialogue. When the tacit knowledge is made explicit it becomes clear and allows being accessible by others as well as being the base for new knowledge. By using
metaphors and models to explain the tacit it can more easily be transformed into explicit knowledge.
Combination is the process when different explicit knowledge is combined with each other and creates new knowledge, which is spread between individuals. Creative use of computer networks and databases can make this transformation possible. By gathering knowledge from different sources to a context new knowledge is created. An example of this would be a meeting were different people are gathered and all share their knowledge and experiences, and together they discuss, make conclusions and create new
knowledge.
Internalisation is when explicit knowledge is transformed into implicit by action, which can relate to the statement ‘learning by doing’. By reflecting on what is written in instructions and manuals, the individual can enrich the silent knowledge base. An
example of this is when an individual uses knowledge that was created at a meeting. This knowledge then becomes tacit. The specific tacit knowledge can then be used to start the SECI spiral when others share it in the socialisation phase.
4.7.2 Communication of information
The language used between departments and functional groups will need attention in many organisations to be efficient. By reducing the complexity and jargon in written and spoken communication it will facilitate comprehension. When written business
communication cannot be read or understood easily, it will only be received with a brief glance, rather than the detailed study it requires. Simplify and shorten must be the guiding principles. (Oakland, 1993)
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When Oaklands (1993) writes about Total Quality Management, he describes four principles of communication. These are:
• Verbal communication
• Written communication
• Visual communication
• Examples
People receive information through their senses, but according to Liker & Miller (2004) highest percentage of what is learnt is through sight. They roughly estimated that 75%
of the learning contribution is from sight and it shows that visible methods of
communication can be successful. To use pictures, graphs, sketches and other visual aids to communicate is also reducing the possibility of misunderstanding (Liker & Miller, 2004).
4.7.3 Toyota way of communication
At Toyota there is an innovative way of visually communicating information, better known as the ‘A3 report’. The purpose of this is to be able to present a whole report in one piece of paper. The reason for choosing the A3 format was originally because it was the biggest format that fits into a fax machine. It is possible to capture a lot of data in one sheet of paper and it undermines the risk of putting in too much information. It also makes it easier to share the information with other people and help them to understand the problem quicker. A well prepared A3 prevents the quote Winston Churchill once quipped about a cumbersome report:
“The length of this document defends it well against the risk of its being read”.
A good picture is worth a thousand words and data presented in graphics is normally quicker and easier to understand than text. (Liker & Miller, 2004)
To create and complete an efficient A3 report is somewhat of an art. There is not a single way to fill one out but in ‘The Toyota Way’ (Liker, 2004) there are a few guidelines that help making the information easier to understand, see Appendix 1.
4.7.4 Lesson learned and sharing information
To forget what went wrong the first time of a project, and repeatedly do the same mistake over and over again, is one way to be inefficient. To save and share lesson learned is a good solution to improve the memory of an organisation and make sure same mistakes are not repeated. According to George (2002) a company with thousands of employees and hundreds of common processes is naturally going to have some
problems with implementing improvements across the whole company. Often seen is that local teams of excellence are developed but according to George (2002) it is important to leverage the knowledge and lesson learned from these teams across the whole
corporation. Instead of pursuing separate and unconnected initiatives at several sites, it makes more sense to focus improvement resources on one site or one team, identify and refine process improvements there and then share the best practice and lesson learned with others. Once the best practice has been identified, a package needs to be prepared including explanations and up to a two hours presentation with a lot of supporting
examples. This can then help others to understand how to implement the same or similar solution. (George, 2002)
See Appendix 2 for SELLS, the Society for Effective Lessons Learned Sharing, writing tips of lesson learned documents according.
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5 Current State and Analysis
To understand and be able to create a solution to a problem, the current state needs to be investigated and analysed. In this section the currant state analysis will be presented.
The following chapters, 5 and 6, are presenting and analysing the current state and the forecast that will have relevance to this thesis. This is then escaladed down into detailed requirements that the solution has to fulfil, which is presented in Chapter 7
‘Requirements for Solution’. Finally the suggested solution is presented in Chapter 8.
5.1 INTRODUCTION TO THE CHAPTER
During the site visits, interviews and observations, some subjects were identified as more relevant to the manufacturing technical package. This was done by discussing the
different subjects within the project group but also with the different sites of Rolls-Royce, and then agrees if it would be part of the manufacturing technical package or not.
Because the objective of the thesis is to develop a proposal for a new standard, the quality management system that contains the current standard has been investigated, analysed and presented in ‘5.3 Rolls-Royce Current Standards and Procedures’. This is to understand the structure, content and level of details that today’s standards are written in. The specific manufacturing technical package standard has also been looked at to understand the current inclusion, possible issues with it and to have a starting point for the improvements. This is presented in ‘5.4 Current Manufacturing Technical Package Standard’.
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As the manufacturing technical package defines the method of manufacture and involves the work made by a manufacturing engineer, this area has been investigated and is presented in ‘5.5 Method of Manufacture’. This includes some of the work that is carried out to define the method of manufacture, the issues observed at Rolls-Royce and the key reasons for these issues are analysed.
The manufacturing technical package is about information, and according to Oakland (1993) the business success depends on how data, information and knowledge are managed. To understand this, the communication between manufacturing engineer and other departments has been analysed, but as well as the labour turnover and the impact this has on information handover at Rolls-Royce.
5.2 BACKGROUND AND CURRENT SITUATION OF ROLLS-ROYCE
According to internal briefings and looking at the reduced value of the share prices, after the terrorist attacks against United States in September 2001 all gas turbine
manufacturers suffered a down turn in orders. The reason for this was mainly a fall to the airborne traffic and the demand of new aeroplane engines was drastically reduced. This downturn was predicted to last for a significant number of years and Rolls-Royce
management concluded that Rolls-Royce would have capacity not going to be used. As a strategic action this spare capacity was used to replace some of the old plants with new modern facilities. The plan was to be prepared for the predicted increasing demand in the future and eventually take market shares from the competitors. However, the predicted downturn in firm orders lasted only a short period of time and in 2004 the company increased civil aero engine deliveries by 10% and military aero engine by 7% over the 2002 period (Rolls-Royce, 2007). This increase continued and has now placed the company in a time of big changes but also with heavily increased pressure on the manufacturing processes. To meet this challenge one requirement that has been set by Rolls-Royce is that the manufacturing needs to become more efficient and work more similar to the automotive industry as described in the theoretical frame of reference. It has been recognised by Rolls-Royce management that the handling of the technical information could be improved, and as Oakland (1993) points out this is a keystone for being efficient.
5.3 ROLLS-ROYCE CURRENT STANDARDS AND PROCEDURES
Rolls-Royce comprises of many different companies merged together over the time since first formed at 1906. This together with Rolls-Royce being a multinational company has
