When Failing to Plan is Planning to Fail

Wilcox Associates, Inc.
250 Circuit Drive
North Kingstown, RI 02852

Toll Free: 800.218.7125
Phone: 401.886.2770
Fax: 248.449.9445
Contact Us

Home

News & Events

EM Sleuth

Going paperless eliminates bottleneck in product development process

“That’s what my mother always said, God bless her,” said Sleuth, with a tear welling up in his eye. “If you fail to plan, you might as well be planning to fail.”

“For you guys, my mother’s words have a special meaning. Failing to plan in your case might not only cost you your jobs, but it could bring the whole company down too. So you better pay attention to Mom.”

Sleuth was speaking to an audience of a little over a dozen men, designers, manufacturing engineers, measurement device programmers, and the plant manager. Most were leaning forward in rapt attention, so as not to miss a word.

The mighty Parts ’R Us manufacturing company was floundering in rough economic waters. These were the men expected to keep the ship afloat and on course until the storm subsided. There was no end of the work to do with a crew whose hours had been reduced by 25 percent. The only way to manage this would be for everyone to pull together and work more efficiently. . . again.

Daunting challenge

The group had just listened to John Marsden, the measurement team leader, explain why the company’s most recent productivity initiative seemed particularly daunting. During previous years, the team had upgraded software so that it could do almost all the programming for the measurement machines off-line in an intuitive, computer-assisted programming environment.

Team members had also diversified their portfolio of measurement systems so that their Direct Computer Control Coordinate Measuring Machine (DCC CMM) was no longer the only game in town. They had added vision and multi-sensor measurement equipment for measuring medical devices and other small components. The company had recently purchased several miniature, portable CMMs that they could use on their CNC machine for fast in-process data collection.

Parts ’R Us was using on-machine gaging with a spindle probe to reduce setup time and perform automatic in-process gaging for some of its large aerospace and defense contract parts. Finally, to whatever extent it was possible, the company had begun using common measurement system programming software so that it could use programs or at least parts of programs interchangeably on various measurement devices with just a modest amount of editing.

The beauty of this last development is that users only had to train in one programming system. That meant there were no longer any measurement device specialists on the Parts ’R Us three-person measurement team. Everyone was at least familiar with the programming and use of all of the new measurement systems.
“Where are you going to find additional low-hanging fruit?” Sleuth asked.

"Where are you going to find additional low-hanging fruit?"

Output doubles

The improvement in productivity over the past three years, after the implementation of these changes, was substantial. As a result, the team was performing nearly twice as many part measurements and analyses with exactly the same number of people.

Instead of being seen as a bottleneck, the measurement team was now considered to be a valuable partner in an integrated engineering and manufacturing process. Now, in light of the current crisis, Parts ’R Us was looking to take on more customers and a larger variety of work. This would mean creating more inspection programs and performing more part validations, particularly for developmental business.

Since team members would have to amortize this increased workload against income from shorter production runs, they would have to write measurement programs with little, ideally no, additional labor costs.

“So what you would like to know,” said Sleuth in summary, “is this. After making all of those measurement productivity improvements, where are you going to find additional low-hanging fruit — improvements that will allow you to do even more without additional hands?”

“You got it,” Marsden said. “That’s it in a nutshell.”

“Right! So let me ask everybody a question. What are we doing elsewhere in the shop to improve productivity?” Sleuth asked.

After he said this he went around the room pointing to various people and staring at them until he got answers.

What would help

“We are discouraging customers from sending us drawings. Paper just slows us down and often confuses things,” said one.

“If we had our way, we would only use solid CAD models as the basis for CAM programming,” said another.

“We are automating our CNC programming as much as possible using tools like feature-based programming for 2D parts and automatic surface tool path generation for sculptured surfaces,” said still another.

“Enough said!” and the Sleuth held his palms down and shot them out sideways to cut off any additional conversation.

“There seems to be a common theme emerging here. We can sum it up by pulling out some key words from what we’ve said so far. These are: paperless … CAD-based … and automated programming,” he said.

“Mr. Marsden,” said Sleuth, enjoying his dramatic moment on the stage, “Go ye and do likewise with your measurement systems.”

“But how can we do that?” Marsden asked. “Our inspection plans come down to us as marked up drawings and we have to enter all of that GD&T information while we are creating the measurement program.”

Sleuth shook his head disapprovingly.

Electronic plans

“Insist that they send you only electronic inspection plans so that your measurement software can do most of the measurement system programming automatically, he answered. “With CAD-based inspection plans, you will also be able to quickly and automatically adapt your inspection programs based on changes that occur during developmental stages.”

“But they have always done it by marking up their prints,” said Marsden, with a squeaky voice.

“Mr. Marsden, these are the very same people who are telling your customers to stop sending drawings because it is far too inefficient. Can’t you tell your design engineers the same thing?” Sleuth asked.

“I guess I can,” said Marsden.

Now the Sleuth swung himself around to glare at some others in the room.

“You CAD programmers in the crowd, can you start sending the measurement guys electronic inspection plans based on the CAD model instead of paper? That way measurement won’t be a bottleneck in your accelerated product development process.”

“But how do we do that?” grumbled one of the CAD programmers.

“Just like everything else,” said Sleuth, “with simple software tools that are already available in the market. Now, instead of wasting time trying to figure out how best to convey your design intent to the measurement machine programmers, you do it using software that lets you mark up your drawings electronically and embed the information in the CAD file. It might add a few minutes of time to your designing but it will subtract many hours from measurement programming.”

“That doesn't sound like too much to ask,” said the CAD programmer meekly.

“Good,” said Sleuth. “That’s the beginning of a plan. Instead of failing to plan, we will be planning to succeed, just like my mother always said.”