Six Sigma 'Lean Management'

[Aus_AF]

Hi all.

Seems the Aust Air Force is in the early stages of heading down this 'anti-waste lean six sigma (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Sigma)' road to manage its aircraft maintenance processes.

We had an AirCdre drop by letting us know that we will all thouroughly enjoy the change being thrust onto us. We had an Ex-MoD member enlighten a few of us on how 'good' it actually is from an aircrew perspective.

Just wondering if this whole concept of Lean Management is an effective strategy for aircraft maintenance processes from MoD personnel who have been down this path already(?)

[Wirelock]

From what i know the RAF have introduced it a number of years ago to great affect for cost savings in their maintenance practices

[jaadu]

Just watch the 6 sigma get rid of all the experienced old hands,cos that's exactly what it did for a blue chip auto maker!!!!!!!!!

[Splitpin44]

The "lean" way of working goes well when building new aircraft or cars but from what I have seen it's not well suited to major checks on old aircraft. All it takes is one airframe guy to pull up a floorboard and find heaps of corrosion and suddenly all your milestones and charts can go in the bin. And if your lucky you have leaned out your workplace so much there is no one left to do OT to fix said corrosion.

[Rigga]

From what I've seen:

LEAN and 6-Sigma were tools designed for use by large manufacturing industries.

The thing about manufacturing is that it is a "straight line process" by which I mean that "Things" come to the factory, at the point and time of their need to feed the Line, and are assembled in strict order by people who are task-trained for single aspects of the Line assembly process.

The need for LEAN was instigated by (toyota?) to strip out waste from post-WW2 production methods and cut the "Manufacturing" process to the minimum by using Time-and-Motion methods - this is now wrapped in modern glitzy business-speak and has all sorts of Forms, Terminology, Language changes and some rather weird "business" games to play whilst your doing the problem definition and solving.

I have seen it work.

Although, more often than not, I have also seen it...

1. Complicate matters because some idiots forgot to replace the old scheme with the new one (the point is to make things simpler - not to add layers of complicated additional administration)

2. Not produce anything at all, due to a lack of commitment by those attending the games!

My Point?

LEAN and 6-sigma can be a good "TOOLS" when used for the right reasons - They are not the new cure-all for all your present management's previous c0ck-ups. (I dont know the management in question so this is not aimed at them, particularly!)

But when the UK Government used it on the MoD, Civil Services and the NHS it has caused great disruption and chaos among those at the lower end of the food chain - it has almost decimated manpower levels and doubled workoads with no obvious thoughts to the safety levels / risks incurred within either organisation. It has been apparent that the only real requirement was to cut manpower in all organisations without regard to Shifts or other hard fought-for practice reasons.

Only the resultant low morale and increase in exiting manpower has helped the remuneration increase to cope with the work.

The end result?
After several long years of undirected disruption and uncommunicated chaos - and suffering from overcooked redundancy payments and low morale among the remaining workers - and whilst still in the midst of the hardships incurred, some Spin-Doctor will say how well it turned out - and its a lie!

For aircraft MAINTENANCE (i.e. not manufacturing) there are some real practicle differences:
1. No Line or Base Maintenance aircraft runs along a production line so it is not possible to tell when you will want a spare part - "Just-In-Time" practices are often "Just-Much-Too-Late"!

2. Spare parts are often removed, worked on and installed to the same aircraft. I haven't seen this work under LEAN as "Consultants" say the duff part should all be reworked in a Workshop - I dont see how this can reduce down-time when you cant get the new part "Just-In-Time"?

3. LEAN usage was seen to be devisive and targetted at Ground Trades - The reductions in manpower, because of LEAN Events, often overrode the manpower requirement from a military PoV? (Squadrons used to use the extras on Guarding, etc.) e.g. The removal of Squadron Technicians to central pools of technicians was not followed by a similar centralisation of aircrews (a logical follow-on action), and thus disengaged some loyalty and pride in work carried out.

I really hope this helps.
Rigga

Edited bit...

"From what i know the RAF have introduced it a number of years ago to great affect for cost savings in their maintenance practices"

As a personal observation: This comment is rubbish - except from a Bean-Counters Point of View! ALL RAF maintenance (dont know of RN or Army) is now in constant disarray and confusion due to the misuse of LEAN and cost-cutting excercises.

'Nuf said.
Rigga

[Siforest65]

Before I went into Aircraft Maintenance, I was involved in manufacturing.

Pretty much everything Rigga has said rings true. In manufacturing you start with a known set of components to achieve a final product. However aircraft maintenance has many variables, least of which is the state of the check aircraft, age, flight cycles and hours etc

Also if a consumer product fails during operation, you replace it. If an aircraft fails mid flight, thats a different matter.

[Aus_AF]

Thanks Rigga, that is pretty much the pre-conceived mental image I have of this plan thats coming.

An example given was in an effort to save time reconfiguring the aircraft from gunnery/guns installed back to drop tanks on a daily basis or thereabouts, it is seen more 'Lean' to have for 1 week all aircraft configured for gunnery tasks period. This way the time saved reconfiguring each jet will allow for other maintenance activity.

From a beancounters perspective this no doubt on paper has a lot of merit to it.

It goes back to that old flowchart whereby, on the ground floor something looks like sh1t and it stinks, by the time it gets to the top of the chain its considered manure and promotes growth therefore the boss enforces the manure onto the worker..

Will go in with eyes open and a positive mindset though, as morale will improve or the beatings continue..

[muduckace]

LEAN Sigma 6/ continual improvement etc.

The ideals are great.

They are better suited for a proactive environment EG: production and overhaul.

I have seen such programmes used in a line (reactive environment), it is hard to implement as in a reactive environment the variables out number the constants.

It is usually up to a select few to determine processes and often creates more chaos than efficiency. I have seen poor processes that were abandoned out of plain old common sence written back in stone because someone who was just seeking a better solution were able to sell it withought reguard to the fact that it had failed in the past to advance their career.

The only way any continual improvment process works is when the people doing the tasks are motivated and believe their voices can be heard and respected, they are often trumped by office politics. Human nature is the largest issue, take the personal greed and desire for dominance out of it and it works best.

Don't let me get off my point that in a reactive environment it sucks the common sence out of the workforce replacing it with confining procedures and processes that end up biting a company in the ass. Not to mention the millions companies spend trying to turn a reactive environment vainly into a proactive one.

Proactivity and common sence needs to be nourished and enouraged for a line maintenance operation to be sucessfull. Humans lack this intelligence at this time in my experience. Hell, scratch that, it's there. It is just that few have the cajones or ovaries to stand up for it in our corperate culture.

[MMA_Historicflight]

If its set up correctly and with some minor mods to the "system" it can work well in Engineering for A checks as such, come heavy maintenance its a waste of time pretty much, however some of the systems can be used to reduce the amount of time spent on a particular area. However Military aircraft and civil aircraft come R3, or a D Check there is that many cracks and corrosion there is no point in using Lean Sigma.

[Papa2Charlie]

Hi all,

There seems to be some confusion here with Six Sigma and Lean. Lean in my opinion looks at understanding a process and optimising it to remove waste. Six sigma on the other hand is a statistical tool used to reduce the variation in a product or service. The two can be linked but in my opinion are separate issues i.e. implement a lean production system and then use the statistical tools from Six Sigma to optimise it.

From a maintenance point of view, lean does have a place especially for light checks as in general they do follow a drum beat. Heavy checks on old aircraft are a different story however. Once the lean checks are in place you could conceivably use six sigma to look at methods to reduce ground time etc..

Just my two cents though...

Cheers,

P2C.

[Rigga]

Good point P2C,

I should state that, although my missive mentions 6-Sigma, my experience is only with LEAN.

Rigga

[Desert Diner]

On the manufacturing side, most 6 Sigma programs I am familiar with were implemented by companies on their way down the drain.

Usualy they it gets implemented by clueless management after they go overboard on cost cutting measures that decimate their manufacturing lines.

Hopefully this is not the case for the AAF

[Papa2Charlie]

Making radical changes to any process will damage a company, sometimes beyond a point that will allow the company survive. The key to implementing lean systems is to a) understand your starting point and b) make the changes gradually.

In my company I have seen lean implemented in a number of areas (including overhaul) and while it hasn't been smooth it has brought about benefits. It's a long road to transform an organisation with alot of history behind it but if the changes are implemented in gradual steps it can make the place alot better to work in i.e. not always fire-fighting problems.

Cheers,

P2C

[geekygirl]

I remember working for an Aussie airline in their Heavy Maintenance department that decided to jump on the LEAN principles wagon and 6 Sigma, ISO9000 and KPI's and other such quality and business measures (well sort of, I think that stupid Reachout program was part of it...dunno I was an apprentice :p )

They dont exist anymore!....:}

[Rigga]

I think I should also add that, although I'm a QAM for a sizeable aircraft maintenance company, I don't agree with joining all these "quality clubs" for the sake of getting a new badge on the wall - and I often oppose attempts to do so!

I believe that all these "Tools" do have a use. And they may highlight an area of concern, but in the main, they do not replace the use of "common sense" which waste's less manhours and costs far less in consultant fees.

My company does ISO9001 and EASA - with the emphasis on EASA - we try to keep it fairly simple, and it works.

[Blacksheep]

The Navy went LEAN years ago, when they built the new Ark Royal...

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b360/689124/H_W2.jpg


;)

[barit1]

The concept behind six sigma is that you accumulate tons of data to determine the standard deviation of a process (eg dimension, material property, etc.) Its objective is admirable - back up management decisions with hard data instead of "seat of the pants" reactions. It works best when you are manufacturing thousands of widgets.

But in a field situation, the only way to accumulate this much data is to measure everything, inspect everything, log everything, over and over. It's VERY labor intensive over and above normal ops.

So I feel it could well be counter-productive to implement six sigma, if the objective is field cost reduction.

[dubh12000]

So I feel it could well be counter-productive to implement six sigma, if the objective is field cost reduction

Oh, never a truer word.

I think we have now got to a stage where Lean and 6 sigma have merged into a quality monster, that few understand and all fear. 6 sigma means far more than a Cpk of 1.33 to most.

Histrorically it was GE screwed it up in my opinion by refocusing Motorola's ideology of a quality-cetric exercise to a cost-centric exercise. (IMO higher quality implies cost saving / value add).

Today I see it simply as a "toolbox". I simply employ tools such as 8D, 5S (or 6S these days!), measles charts etc when and where they are needed. Common sense must prevail.