Organizational Architecture Design and Assessment of Statistical Feasibility for NPM Implementation in an Airplane Subassembly

Abstract

Company Z is a ubiquitous name and prominent leader in the aerospace industry, maintaining dominance in part by continuously seeking to improve. Company Z is now embracing a charter to become a Global Industrial Champion in manufacturing by developing strategies to improve manufacturing quality, speed, and cost. As part of this effort Company Z is implementing Novel Production Method (NPM) on a new aircraft, Aircraft ABC. This document focuses specifically on Assembly A, a primary assembly in Aircraft ABC. NPM is a process in which all piece part holes are drilled precisely and accurately upon manufacture and later assembled with no match-drilling necessary on the assembly line. This promises to significantly reduce cycle time while simultaneously improving assembly quality and speed. Accurate tolerance decisions for piece part hole diameters, hole positions, and hole patterns are imperative for NPM success on Assembly A. As Assembly A is in the early design stages, no measurement data exists to aid in determining which tolerances will yield a successful assembly. To supplement this data gap, measurement and pass/fail data from other aircraft were used to simulate Assembly A pass/fail rates using Close Ream, Class 1, and Class 2A tolerance quality tiers. Results from this analysis indicate probable Assembly A NPM success using Class 1 quality hole tolerances for non-complex parts and Class 2A hole tolerances for complex parts. It is also imperative to restructure Assembly A organizational architecture to accommodate the radical innovation required to implement NPM. The existing organizational model invites many improvement opportunities in communication, collaboration, and shortened learning cycles. A high velocity learning approach is used to examine the current organizational structure and offer adaptation strategies. It is recommended that the current Agile team structure be adapted to include more diverse job functions and to include other Company Z aircraft organizations as well as strategic suppliers as partners. It is additionally recommended that a larger emphasis be placed on data distribution across business units. The implementation of these organizational changes and the aforementioned engineering strategies will vastly improve the efficiency of NPM implementation in Assembly A.