Manufacturing engineering
Planning and production control
Date: 2008-ongoing
Client: AIRBUS Defense & Space
AERTEC commenced the project in 2008 by providing services to Airbus Military in operational planning and A400M FAL workstation reporting for the manufacture and start-up of the first five aircraft destined to pass and validate certification testing for their subsequent commercialisation. After such tests were passed, the scope of the project was extended in 2012 once the mass production phase had begun. This included the production control service and then coverage management in 2013.
The A400M assembly process requires components which come from different locations around the world. Once these components are received at the FAL in Seville, the manufacturing process is structured into different stations where the assembly phase takes place, during which it is the product itself that is moved physically around the different stations.
Operational planning monitors the production process’s tasks on the basis of the original master planning provided by engineering. It makes the opportune changes in duration, order of tasks to be performed, quantity of resources and even adds new tasks to adapt the process to actual day-to-day production needs, taking into account the real availability of resources, materials, tools, shifts or any other unforeseen circumstance that may arise.
It is also in charge of monitoring and controlling any OSW of both partners and preceding stations.
Scopes of work
The main mission of production control is to oversee the efficient management of material and production resources, as well as to identify any deviations in resources and time scales from the planning to thereby optimise processes.
- Maintenance and updating of the station’s operational planning
- In conjunction with the production control function, monitoring scheduled tasks and their impact on general planning
- Monitoring and analysis of estimated vs. real hours employed to complete tasks
- Coordination of outstanding work in conjunction with partners’ planners
- As the planning and production control department, making presentations to Production on the status of work in progress and outstanding work in the short/medium/long term as regards resources, components coverage and enhancement proposals
The mission to which each of the coverage management department’s functions is assigned is focused on coordinating the work tasks that have to be done in order to ensure the programme’s delivery plans are met.
The coverage area is divided into sub-areas, each of which has its own input and way of working that depends on the support function they carry out, which are classified into: equipment, loose items, IFA, OSW and REC.
- Analysis of materials coverage related to manufacturing orders
- Issuing manufacturing orders, monitoring and closure thereof
- Work task coordination in conjunction with operational planner
- Management of equipment dismantling orders/loose items. (Rejections, loans and/or cannibalisation)
- Management of components, equipment and loose items which do not pass through the ELC logistical platform
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- Management of all the parts belonging to FAL assembly plans needed for the aircraft under assembly
- Obtaining information from IPs on delivery planning to ELC warehouse in Seville
- Informing production control about the dates elements under the responsibility of coverage management are to be received
- Agreements with the supply chain to ensure elements are at the ELC within cost and on time
- Management and monitoring of new demand for parts at the FAL facility due to special causes, such as NC, SI, DQN or similar
- Informing ME and control of the aircraft’s configuration and of the elements to be received, so they can be dispatched against their orders
- Reporting and KPIs connected to the aircraft’s coverage (FAL facility) and deliveries set out by IP
- Monitoring and logistical tasks in the REC area
- Coverage monitoring in the IFA OSW area
- Raising elements that could turn out to be critical for the aircraft before the relevant industrial representative, CPO and A/C managers