a standardised approach to technical manufacturing

MASTER’S THESIS2008:041 CIV

Universitetstryckeriet, Luleå

Mats ForsbergAnders Johansson

A Standardised Approach to Technical Manufacturing InformationTo 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

A Standardised Approach to Technical Manufacturing Information

Acknowledgement

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

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

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

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


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


Introduction

1

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

found on the shop floor but would still be part of the manufacturing technical package.


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.


Introduction

3

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.


Rolls-Royce

5

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)


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

Supp

ly C

hain

Uni

ts

Customer Facing Business Units

Component Services

General Machining

Financial Services

Purchasing Supply Chain U

nits

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)


Method

7

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:


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.

PP PPllaann

DD DDoo

SS SSttuuddyy

AA AAcctt

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.


Method

9

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

questionnaires and surveys. (Patton, 2001)


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


Method

11

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.


Method

12

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.


Method

13

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

people from the different business units. The workshops have involved all levels in the


Method

14

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.


Method

15

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.


Theoretical Frame of Reference

17

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



18

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.



19

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.



20

Work with 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).



21

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.



22

4.6 STANDARDISATION

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)



23

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.



24

Wisdom

Knowledge

Information

Data + Analyse

+ Use

+ Experience

Data in content, having meaning and structure

Information in context, understanding

Actions & decisions

Incr

easi

ng h

uman

com

pete

nt

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.



25

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)



26

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



27

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.


Current State and Analysis

29

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.


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’.



30

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



31

resulted in big variation of culture and history among the employees. During

observations it has been seen that there is an inconsistent way of working between the

plants and sometimes even variation within one and the same office, and as Brunsson &

Jacobsson (1998) points out this leads to different issues. Liker (2004) also writes that

this prevent improvements to be easily carried out. Talking to the observed people there

has been a common view that this is a result of inherited methodologies and the fact that

there has been little work around standardisation. However, there are standards and

routines that are defined in the Rolls-Royce Quality Management System, which are

mandating how things are carried out. The standards and procedures are divided in

‘group quality procedures’ and ‘local operating procedures’. The ‘group quality

procedures’ define the generic way of how Rolls-Royce shall be managed and are often

detailed on a high level. A ‘local operating procedure’ on the other hand is plant or supply

chain unit specific and is normally more specified in details. It explains how the work

shall be carried out and are often seen as an extension of the ‘group quality procedures’.

As the Rolls-Royce Quality System includes over 300 standards and procedures, it has

been seen by most interviewed manufacturing engineers as quite difficult to get an

overview and find what is required for different activities. The system does have a search

engine but it can only find words and requires it being written exactly as it stands in the

standard. The standards are also told to be written in an ambiguous way, which makes it

difficult and time consuming to understand them.

In addition to the Rolls-Royce Quality Management System, Rolls-Royce has also created

a data base of ‘best practice’ a couple of years ago, called Rolls-Royce Production System

(RRPS). The production system is a web page located on the intranet containing guides,

lessons learned and theoretical documents related to the manufacturing. According to the

department managing the RRPS, this was done to help the engineers to be more

methodological and work in similar ways. Unfortunately this was developed from the

head quarter with little involvement from the manufacturing engineering community, and

as Bergman & Klefsjö (2004) writes is that ”Prerequisite for participation” is something

important for any businesses. During non-structured interviews and conversations with

manufacturing engineers across the business it was shown that many people did not use

the production system. In fact, most of the people did not even know that it existed or

how to best use it. The guides are not detailed and demands good knowledge within the

subject and the lesson learned pages has barley been updated since the start.

As Liker (2004), Brunsson & Jacobsson (1998) points out, standardisation is important

for different reasons. Especially Brunsson & Jacobsson (1998) mean that it enables an

effective information transfer, which is particularly important in regards to this thesis.



32

5.4 CURRENT MANUFACTURING TECHNICAL PACKAGE STANDARD

The ‘group quality procedure’ for the manufacturing technical package defines the

minimum elements for inclusion as:

• Condition of material supply, including drawings and relevant quality control and laboratory requirements

• Operational sequence

• Machines, processes, and tooling including numerical control (NC) data

• Manufacturing assembly and operation/stage drawing

• Manufacturing process parameters

• Environmental conditions when appropriate

• All inspection methods and stages, and measuring planning

• Component identity requirements

• Handling and packaging requirements

These bullets can be compared with what Schey (1987), Kalpakjuan & Schmid (2006)

include in a manufacturing process in Chapter “4.2 Manufacturing”. However, Rolls-Royce

definition of a manufacturing technical package includes only things that are directly

related to the manufacturing and leaves out things such as customer service, shipping,

sales etcetera.

Initially in the project a survey was undertaken to understand the current situation of the

manufacturing technical package at Rolls-Royce. Data was gathered from all seven

manufacturing sites in the United Kingdom, Rolls-Royce Deutschland (Germany) and

from Rolls-Royce Corporation (America). Every plant got the mission to provide with a

complete manufacturing technical package for one part, and the result was widely

spread. The received manufacturing technical packages were everything from work

instructions only, to a big pile of paper including things such as production planning

documents and all the evidences of a conforming production.

The intent with the manufacturing technical package is to ensure that the method of

manufacture can achieve and sustain the quality, cost and design intent for the part.

Looking at how well Rolls-Royce manufacturing processes are achieving, it is not sure

that the received documentation is fulfilling the requirements. Out from this it has been

noticed that there is a gap in between the current standard and the intention with it, as

the quality, cost and design intent have not always has been ensured. Unstructured

interviews with manufacturing engineers revealed that there is a common perception that

the current manufacturing technical package standard is too loosely defined and difficult

to understand what is required. This issue has been seen as the main reason for the



33

variation of the different collected manufacturing technical packages. The quality system

defines the subject but do not specify any level of detail of the content that is required.

An example of this is that there is a minimum requirement that a stage drawing must

exist but nowhere does it specify how a good one should look like and what information it

should contain. To have clear definitions and requirements is according to Liker (2004)

important to measure quality.

During the interviews, a number of manufacturing engineers have complained about that

they do not understand what is expected from the standard, but some of them have not

even checked what is required. Another of the reasons is said to be the limited time they

have to compile the manufacturing technical package during a new part introduction. As

a result of this, some important technical information is not captured and actions are not

carried out to prevent issues that could occur in the production.

5.4.1 Document properties

In the beginning of the project the focus was mainly put on the work instructions and

other documents given to the operators. The reason for this was that many sites and

people had a perception that these shop floor documents were what defined the

manufacturing technical package (but this was realised as a mistake after that the

documents had been analysed). Over hundred different kinds of document layouts were

found. The documents were analysed against requirements in the quality system when it

comes to document properties, which are based on the global ISO 9000 standard. Table

1 shows how well the documents were complying with some of the requirements.

Table 1. Ratio of documents that are compliant with the Rolls-Royce Quality Management System when it comes to document properties.

Copyright 25%

Author 70%

Document number 75%

Issue number 84%

Page number 89%

The result shows that there are many documents that are not compliant. Only 25% of

the documents are having the appropriate copyright information. This is important if the



34

documents are to be taken outside the company to protect Rolls-Royce proprietary

information, for example when drawings are sent to a tool designer. 30% of the

documents are not stating who created the document, which makes it difficult to

understand who are responsible for the issuing. Between 16% and 25% are missing a

document and issue number, which makes it difficult to ensure a good change control

and traceability. The reason that the document are missing out of important markings

can once again relate back to the lack of a clear and accessible standard of what is

required, but also the lack of understanding of the importance of the standard.

5.4.2 Execution system

The manufacturing execution system at Rolls-Royce is well standardised across the

company. This program is called Totally Integrated Manufacturing Engineering System,

normally referred to as TIMES. This was implemented in 1989 and the purpose was to

have a standard corporate system to create and store technical data, deliver shop floor

instructions and included a robust change control functionality. From conversations with

people involved in the implementation, it was said already at that time it was starting to

be out of date compared to what other computer systems could achieve. The system

does not have a user-friendly interface and visual photos or figures can not be attached

to support the operator instructions, see Figure 7. According to interviews with plant

managers, this is one of the biggest reasons why many plants have decided to use other

software to create work instructions. The system is still used to control cost, equipment,

resources and execute the production.

Figure 7. Example of a blank template for a work instruction created in and delivered through TIMES.



35

During interviews with manufacturing engineers around the company it has been

concluded that another reason to use other software is because of the complexity of

TIMES. During demonstration of how it is operated and used, it appeared to be time

consuming and difficult to use. As of this the decision has been to only train a few people

in every plant to manage the system. Instead of using TIMES to create the operator

instructions, the plants are using Microsoft Office based programs such as Word, Excel

and PowerPoint. Many authors has developed their own kind of templates, which are

excluding many of the mandatory document properties as seen in Table 1, but also the

change control functionality that TIMES offers. Interviews with manufacturing

engineering managers have confirmed that valuable working time is spent to develop all

these new formats and sometimes the change control has been compromised. The

instructions created in Microsoft Office were intentionally going to be referred from

TIMES, but when going through the documents it showed that this was not always the

case. In the cases where the document was referred it did not always refer to the right

issue of the document.

Another issue is that the documents created have different names among the plants. As

an example the instructions for a special process operation, like welding or chemical

cleaning, is called Data Card in one plant, Process Technique Card in another and Process

Breakdown Instruction in the third. The combinations of names are many and sometimes

there are parameters included in the documents, and sometimes they are on a separated

special parameter document. Experienced in the company, is that this variation of

standard makes it difficult to transfer people or parts from one plant to another.

Explained during the interviews was that when parts have been transferred in the past,

creation of complete new manufacturing technical packages has been required because

of the difference from one plant to an other. Explained by involved people, this issue was

also experienced when the central manufacturing engineering team was supporting a

plant. It took unnecessary time to get used to the documents and understand the

different names, which could have been avoided through standardisation in working

methods and templates.

5.4.3 Work instructions

As mentioned above, the instructions delivered to the operators exist in a huge number

of templates and styles. The survey also shows a variation in the level of detail, where

some documents contained superfluous information and others the direct opposite.

During observations carried out in various plants it was seen that the operators do not

follow the instructions provided. Their views were that they knew better themselves how



36

to carry out the work and that the documents were inaccurate and not reviewed or

updated regularly. This could once again be explained in the lack of participation from the

people who actually are the end users, which is important according to Bergman &

Klefsjö (2004). Because every individual might have a different opinion of what is ‘the

best way’, it is a possibility that variation in the quality could occur (Montgomery, 2005).

The document analysis shows that in some areas the instructions given to the operators

are at a very high level and include inadequate information. Example of a high level

instruction would be:

1. Load Part into fixture

2. Run operation

3. Unload part

4. Check visually for non-conformance

5. Check dimensions as per drawing

It does not define how to load the part into the fixture or what to look for in the visual

inspection. If every operator performs the operation in his own way there is a risk of

variation in the output, unless the operation is completely error proofed. However, that is

almost impossible to achieve in the reality and seen at Rolls-Royce, most of the

processes are far away from that state. Another example of an instruction could be a 50

pages report given to the operator written in technical and bureaucratic English, and as

according to SELLS (2007) and Liker (2004) this is not a good way of communication. In

this case there it is too much information and the operators said that if they would try to

understand it all and find the information required, it consumes a whole shift and no

work would be done.

5.5 METHOD OF MANUFACTURE

Even if Rolls-Royce produces a wide variety of different kind of parts, there are still

groups that are similar or utilise the same method of manufacture. However, once a

method for one part is proven, the analysis and documentations are not always kept for

record. This prohibits the information to be shared across the different but similar parts,

and valuable time is spent to analyse the same methods over again. Established during

observations is that this issue seems to be common between people, even working in the

same process flow. The manufacturing engineers are focused on their own responsibility

and do not look at the whole process chain. An example was identified in one of the

plants, where the tolerance band for one feature of a part was the same through out the

whole process flow. This resulted in a tolerance stack up, which made it difficult for the

later machining operations to achieve the required results. According to manufacturing



37

engineers with special knowledge in change control, the lack of understanding for the

whole manufacturing process makes it difficult for one manufacturing engineer to

improve his process and at the same time be sure that the changes do not have any

negative impact on the following operations.

During interviews with manufacturing engineers it has shown that “it worked last time” or

“we do as we always have done” is a common perception and mentality. In some areas

the same method of manufacture is re-used when a new part is introduced for

manufacturing. This is efficient assuming that the method worked in the first place. When

asking manufacturing engineers why they have chosen certain solutions in a method, the

answers have often been:

“This is the machines, fixtures and tools we have. The method is already dictated from

the process flow, we cannot change it.”

Seen during the site visits, there is also an issue with the amount of different fixture

types used within Rolls-Royce. Different fixtures utilise various kinds of clamping and

holding mechanisms. Conclusions made through interviews with manufacturing engineers

are that money and time could be saved if an easy accessed documentation existed of

what type of tool or fixture others uses for a certain process and part. Particularly

through development time but also by same fixtures could potentially be used for more

than one part. It is also important that the fixture strategy for a process is used as much

as possible throughout the whole method of manufacture for a part. If the same location

and clamping points can be used throughout the whole manufacturing process, much of

the variation can be eliminated. For every time the location point is changed there is an

extra tolerance added to the processed area. If there are many changes it might be

impossible to ensure the quality of the finished part even if the processes are stable and

controlled. To eliminate this issue the communication between involved people needs to

be good so they can share their knowledge. Observed at one plant was that various

processes within the method of manufacture used different ways of holding the part.

Some operations used the drawing datums, but some others used location points that

was not even inspected or controlled, which did result in non-conformance. All of these

issues can be related back to bad communication and information management, and as

Oakland (1993) writes is key to any business success.

The methods of manufacture are sometimes re-used for new parts, but without checking

if it is appropriate for the process, and even worse, if the method actually was capable

the first time. If there are any issues with the method of manufacture for the old part,

errors will be copied and the same non-conformances will occur on the new part as well.



38

Besterfield (1995) says that a modern business management system must be built up

upon a framework of measurement, data and analysis. At Rolls-Royce non-conformances

are often identified in inspection but there is few analysis carried out to identify and

eliminate the root cause of the problem. Ideally the issue should be identified and actions

taken to prevent the issue from happening again. Interviews and observations show that

when a new part is released for manufacture, it is unusual that a process analysis tool

such as a Process Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (PFMEA), process simulations, Finite

Element Analysis (FEA) etcetera have been carried out, which is mandatory in the Rolls-

Royce Quality Management System. Once again, the lack of time and resources has been

told to be the biggest argument for not being compliant. Those tools are important to

eliminate variation and to achieve a stable manufacturing process. Without a stable

process, other quality improvement tools as Six Sigma are useless (McGraw-Hill, 2004).

The reasons for manufacturing engineers are not following the procedures and standards

could be many. During interviews with people across the company some of the issues

have been identified. One reason is that the customer demands shorter delivery times

and lower prices on the engines. Another reason is that the release of the design to

manufacturing often exceeds the scheduled plan in a new part introduction, but the

delivery date does not change. A part introduction is divided into two phases; design

development and production planning. A delayed design release has serious

consequences for the following phase. It will result in reduced time to make a proper

production planning, and corners have to be cut to meet the customers’ deadline. The

risk with this issue is that parts will be launched for series production without enough

proven manufacturing methods. The customer will still receive a conforming product in

the end, but valuable time is spent on solving issues in the manufacturing process

instead of making right first time. It will also result in additional scrap and rework

activities, which can be very resource consuming according to Juran (1988).

5.6 COMMUNICATION

To achieve a method, and a manufacturing technical package, that can ensure a part to

achieve and sustain targets in quality, cost and design intent, it is important that the

communication of all needed information within the manufacturing technical package

works between the different functions at Rolls-Royce. According to Oakland (1993), it is

often difficult to keep a good communication between departments within a big company,

which has also been observed at Rolls-Royce. Because this thesis is focused on the work

of a manufacturing engineer, the communication interfaces that have been analysed are:



39

• Manufacturing Engineer - Manufacturing Engineer

• Manufacturing Engineer - Design Engineer

• Manufacturing Engineer - Operator

• Manufacturing Engineer - Supplier

5.6.1 Manufacturing Engineer - Manufacturing Engineer

According to Dave Oulsnam at Rolls-Royce human resources department, there are

around 1,000 manufacturing engineers at Rolls-Royce in the United Kingdom. While

investigation the current situation of the company, it has showed that there seems to be

as many different solution to the same kind of issues. During analysis and interviews, it

has been concluded that bad communication has resulted in time being spent on, for

example, to come up with new solutions to issues that already exist at other departments

or plants. Also when it comes to the planning of the method of manufacture, the

solutions for tooling, fixture and other equipment are often specialised for each machine

and part, rather than to use something that already works somewhere else. This results

in unnecessary costs and valuable time is being spent in developing these things over

and over again.

5.6.2 Manufacturing Engineer - Design Engineer

The difference between the manufacturing and design engineers lies in the nature of their

work. According to interviewed design engineers, as the development time for a new

engine is long, they are required to create new innovative parts and products that often

exceed the manufacturing capability of today. Hopefully once the design reaches

production, the capability has been improved and the parts can be manufactured. The

main reason that the designers are ahead of their time is to provide with a modern

engine and to be competitive once the part reaches the market. On the other hand, the

manufacturing engineers are working with the capability offered by today’s technology

and sometimes it can be difficult to achieve design intent if the manufacturing technology

has not reached the required level of capability. Ideally, design is not too ahead of the

manufacturing capability but still a head to drive the need of new technology into the

production plant. For design and manufacturing to understand each other’s requirements,

there have to be good communication in between them through out the whole

development of the part.

During observation is has showed that there is a lack of this connection at Rolls-Royce.

No formal agreement is signed before a new finished part drawing is handed over to the

manufacturing function to ensure it is producible. It has been concluded that this is one

reason that manufacturing is struggling with tolerances and features that will not be



40

possible to produce. It is important to have a live conversation to keep the designer up to

date with all issues that occur in the manufacturing area of the company.

5.6.3 Manufacturing Engineer - Operator

During observations and informal interviews it has been identified that sometimes there

is a power struggle between the engineers and operators. Intentionally the engineers

should provide operations with the technology, equipment and instructions for how to

produce the parts. Observation has established that because of poor communication, the

engineers do not normally know exactly how to best carry out the operation and can not

create an enough accurate instruction. During analysis of the instructions and through

interviews with the operators, it has shown that the manufacturing engineers often are

creating the instructions themselves without the operations involvement. This result in

inadequate instructions and the operators does not feel any ownership and does not work

as the instruction states. This results in that operators have their way of carrying out the

work, which potentially can result in variation in the output of the process (Montgomery,

2005). On the other hand if the operators only create the instructions there are other

issues that can occur, as they are not familiar with establishing the technical information

and trained and aware of change control. It is important to share the ‘best practice’ and

through meetings with all involved people, discuss how the work is best carried out and

together agree and compile the instructions. According to the book ‘The Toyota Way’ by

Liker (2004) it will be more likely that a standardised work can be carried out as

consensuses have been established with everyone involved.

5.6.4 Manufacturing Engineer - Supplier

Rolls-Royce works with many suppliers who are providing tools, fixtures, machines, raw

material etcetera. The lead times to develop and deliver these equipments are often long

and it can be crucial to a new part introduction’s deadline that it is correct the first time.

To achieve the right first time target, it is important that the supplier completely

understand what is required and how this fits into the process of manufacture. During

interviews with manufacturing engineers, it has been identified that there is a need of

improvement in this area at Rolls-Royce. There have been occasions where a supplier has

delivered fixtures that did not operate as requested and did not hold the parts as

intended. The option then was to change the method of manufacture or wait for a new

fixture that would delay start of production, which normally results in more corners being

cut to meet the delivery deadline. The manufacturing technical package clearly needs to

define the requirements of the fixtures to ensure the part is hold in an appropriate way.



41

5.7 LABOUR TURNOVER

Because some manufacturing technical information always will be in peoples head, it was

seen as important to understand the labour turnover at Rolls-Royce. A trend seen more

and more often in any company is that the labour turnover has increased the last

decade. According to a study carried out by Cranfield School of Management

(Recruitment Confidence Index, 2005) almost fifty per cent of the average labour

planned to change job in the next two years. In the aerospace industry the labour

turnover has not been as big according to Dave Oulsnam at Rolls-Royce HR department.

It has always been a one number figure and at 2007 it was 5.5% compared to the EEF

survey 2004 that showed 13.57% for manufacturing companies in UK. However, even if

the people tend to stay with Rolls-Royce once they started, there is a big movement

within the company. According to Oulsnam employees are encouraged to change

positions every 2-3 year, and that is also what people in office environment do at Rolls-

Royce. Even if people gain good experience and a wide network of people when moving

around, valuable tacit knowledge is also lost from the department. This makes it

important to have a system capturing the information and transfer it into explicit

knowledge (externalisation as described by Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995) and at the same

time save the intent behind different decisions. If this information is lost, new employees

need to spend time trying to understand the situation and ‘re-invent the wheel’ again.

This has been seen as an issue by the senior management, as it is a vast waste of

resources and it is not even sure that important manufacturing technical information ever

will be captured again. When employees often change roles within the company it is also

important that they quickly get up to speed in the new assignment. Because of the issue

with knowledge being lost in this process, it takes quite a while, if ever, before full

understanding and speed is reached.



42

5.8 SUMMARY OF CURRENT STATE ISSUES

Table 2 contains the different sections in the left column and summarises the issues for

each one of them to the right. This is done to give an overview of Chapter 5.

Table 2. Issue summary of Chapter 5, Current State and Analysis.

SECTION ISSUES

5.1 Background and Current Situation of Rolls-Royce

Urgent need for more efficient manufacturing processes.

5.2 Rolls-Royce Current Standards and Procedures

Different inherited ways of working so difficulties to share information, knowledge and best practice.

Many standards so difficult to find what are required for different situations.

Standards and procedures not clear and concise.

5.3 Current Manufacturing Technical Package Standard

Too loosely defined.

Existing documents not compliant to standards.

Execution system old and not flexible and good enough for creating work instructions.

Documents created in Microsoft Office do not comply to change control procedures and document properties requirements.

5.4 Method of Manufacture Method of manufacture not proven enough.

Method of manufacture re-used without knowing if it is an appropriate solution.

Technical documents lost or not kept for record.

Poor communication through the whole method, which for example has lead to location and datum point movements through method.

5.5 Communication Poor communication between all functions.

Best practice and lessons learnt not shared.

Design exceeds manufacturing capabilities.

Work instructions not accurate that lead to variation.

Supplied material not as intended.

5.6 Labour Turnover Big internal movement, which leads to loss of information.

No system that captures the tacit information and transform it into explicit.


Forecast and Analysis

43

6 Forecast and Analysis

In this section the future for Rolls-Royce will be analysed in relevance of this thesis.

6.1 INCREASE OF DEMAND

The two biggest aeroplane manufacturers, European Airbus and American Boeing, are

forecasting a continuously demand for many years. According to the Swedish news

magazine E24 (12 September 2007) the growth will be approximately 5% each year until

2025. There are many reasons why the demand of aeroplane has rapidly increased the

last years. One of the main reasons according to E24 (12 September 2007) is that more

people can afford to travel. The big increase of low cost airlines such as Ryanair, Easyjet,

and BMI baby among others has boosted the industry drastically. They have made it

possible for not only the high-income people to fly around the world. Another reason for

the increased demand of air travel, which is linked with previous reason, is the interest in

travelling and exploring the world. The globalisation that today constant surrounds us in

for example media, food and music is all the time remembering us of a culture that can

be visited and experienced.

The increased demand of aeroplanes will have the same impact on aeroplane

manufactures as the companies who are building the turbine engines to power them.

Because this could require an expansion of Rolls-Royce, it is extra important that the

methods of manufactures are under control and are documented. If the manufacturing

technical packages are not in order, it will be difficult to quickly start production in new

plants to meet this fast growing demand. Because there is a requirement that the new


Forecast and Analysis

44

standard for the manufacturing technical package can enable the parts to meet the cost

targets, it is important that this higher demand can be met without a too high expansion

cost.

6.2 COMPUTER AIDED PROCESS PLANNING, CAPP

According to the department of Manufacturing Systems, Rolls-Royce will be implementing

a fully Computer Aided Process Planning (CAPP) system in first quarter of 2008. This

system will create data in a master model and collect necessary information from the

master model when supporting documents such as work instructions, stage drawings and

tool data. The main idea is to connect computer programs to each other to make the

process planning more efficient and accurate.

This implementation requires that all the manufacturing information is transferred from

its current state and location into these new systems, formats and databases. According

to Head of Manufacturing Systems at Rolls-Royce, this transfer would become much

easier if everything already were in a standard format and electronically accessible. At

the moment information is stored in a huge variation of formats as described in chapter 5

and the most of the data is not transferable at all. The first phase of CAPP is planned to

roll out first quarter of 2008. To be able to implement this in a smooth way it, is of

importance that the new standard for the manufacturing technical package is in a format

that will be standardised for all Rolls-Royce sites.


Requirements for Solution

45

7 Requirements for Solution

The requirements of the suggested standard for the technical package are presented in

this section.

Defined by Rolls-Royce is that the intent with a manufacturing technical package is for

the production to achieve and sustain targets for quality, cost and design intent. The new

solution must contain a structure and content that ensures this. From the investigation

and analyses of the current state, the company forecast and the theoretical research the

following requirements have been discussed and agreed by the project group and senior

managements.

As written in Chapter “4.3 Quality”, quality in manufacturing at Rolls-Royce is how well

the parts comply with the engineering drawings. For the part to achieve quality the new

manufacturing technical package needs to approach the issues with incapable and

unproven processes and ensure that the production planning builds in quality to the

method of manufacture. The recommendations need to contain an initial solution on how

to gain and maintain control of the manufacturing processes, as this has been identified

as the most important issue.

To achieve the cost targets the solution needs to enable a more efficient approach to the

use of the information and make the manufacturing processes and production planning

more efficient. As communication is important to an efficient work place (Oakland, 1993),

the result shall also contain tools and techniques on how to improve the communication,

knowledge transfer and understanding between:


Requirements for Solution

46

• Manufacturing Engineers – Design Engineers

• Manufacturing Engineers – Manufacturing Engineers

• Manufacturing Engineers – Operations

• Manufacturing Engineers – Suppliers

Design intent has to be achieved, so the new manufacturing technical package standard

needs to ensure that the gap between design engineering and manufacturing

engineering, identified in Chapter “5.6 Communication”, is minimised.

Suggested solutions need to be supported by relevant standardised document templates

to enable the future CAPP implementation forecasted in “6.2 Computer Aided Process

Planning, CAPP”. These templates must also comply with the prevailing global and

company standards and specifications, such as ISO 9000, Rolls-Royce Quality

Management System etcetera.


Suggestion of New Standard

47

8 Suggestion of New Standard

In this section the result of the thesis will be presented. It comprises of two sections;

first the content and structure of the manufacturing technical package and secondly

improvements to data, information and knowledge management.


The development of the new standard for the Rolls-Royce manufacturing technical

package has been focused into two areas:

• The manufacturing intent and technical information

• Data, information and knowledge management

The purpose of the standard is to correct, and in the long term to prohibit, the issues

described in Chapter 5 before they occur. The result is mostly based on best practice

identified within Rolls-Royce and in some extent also from other industries.

8.2 MANUFACTURING INTENT AND TECHNICAL INFORMATION

To have well defined information around the method of manufacture has been realised

during the analysis to be of importance for many reasons. The main reason is to have

control of the manufacturing and understand what is going on. Another good reason is

that new parts often origin from previous ones and to some extent the technical

information and knowledge can be used again, which could potentially save planning

time, developing time and resources. The extent of the re-use of information is



48

completely depending on how far the standardisation of manufacturing methods has

progressed. It is also important with a clear and defined method of manufacture to

enable improvements for current parts but also to become better and more competitive

for the future. Because of the identified big turnover in labour, it is also a key that the

information, thought process and intent, especially for problem solving activities, is kept

and easily shared to everyone involved and new starters. To save and share lesson

learned is a good solution to improve the memory of an organisation and make sure the

same mistakes are not repeated (George, 2002).

Identified in the analysis, the intent and technical information that needs to be recorded

and saved. To fulfil this it has been divided into three categories based upon the content:

• Process level

• Family level

• Part specific level

8.2.1 Process level

It is important to achieve a stable manufacturing process to enable improvements and

produce conforming parts (Bergman & Klefsjö, 2004). Lack of quality and solving quality

related issues are very costly compared to preventing the issues from the beginning

(Juran, 1988). It has been realised during the analysis that Rolls-Royce is not, in an

enough extend, preventing quality issues to occur during the manufacturing processes.

There are different techniques to investigate the reliability of the manufacturing process

and the purposes of these are according to Bergman & Klefsjö (2004) to identify:

• Root causes to errors and try to eliminate it.

• The consequences of the errors and if possible eliminate these.

One way of doing this would be to complete a Process Failure Mode and Effects Analysis,

abbreviated PFMEA (Bergman & Klefsjö, 2004). Because this technique already is

mandated in the Rolls-Royce Quality Management System, it has been chosen as the

solution for this issue, see Appendix 3. The intent with this activity is to gather cross

functional people with different knowledge and experiences around the process to be

analysed. Every step of the process procedure is stated, understood and analysed. Any

identified possible failure mode that could affect the final result or harm the equipment is

written down and graded to find the most significant ones. A PFMEA should be carried out

by at least the responsible manufacturing engineer, operations- and quality

representative together with an operator.

Uncontrolled variation identified by the PFMEA should be analysed and the root cause

should be eliminated through poka yoke, or error proofing as it is also called (Liker,



49

2004). Uncontrolled variables, which can not be eliminated, need to be taken under

control. To do this, the suggested solution is to create a control plan, see Appendix 4.

Through literature review and benchmarking, this has been identified to be a good

method to keep track on the variables that need to be controlled. The purpose of the

control plan methodology is to aid in the manufacture of quality products according to

quality requirements. A control plan does this by providing a structured approach for the

design, selection and implementation of value-added control methods for the total

system. Control plans provide a written summary of the systems used in minimising

process and product variation. (Chrysler, Ford & General Motors, 1995)

The control plan does not replace the information contained in the detailed work

instructions (Chrysler, Ford & General Motors, 1995). However it needs to have a close

relationship since the control plan may link to the work instruction. The relationship

between the PFMEA, control plan and work instruction is visualised in Figure 8. A

suggestion is that regularly checks can be written on T-cards that are placed on a

Kamishibai board to visualise what is to be done and what is completed (Chrysler, Ford &

General Motors, 1995). This will enable a visual alarm system that immediately will tell

when the control is not completed.

PFMEA

Identify variables

Control Plan

How to control the variables

Instruction

Control the variables

Controllable variables

Instructions of how to

Eliminated cause of variation

Plan to eliminate more cause to

variation

Stable process

Figure 8. Interrelation between PFMEA, Control Plan and Work Instruction.



50

8.2.2 Family level

The analysis shows that it is important to focus on the whole manufacturing process to

improve the effectiveness of the production at Rolls-Royce. It is crucial not to sub-

optimise the processes (Johansson, 2005) and to improve the manufacturing the lean

theories has been found to be a good guideline. Bergman & Klefsjö (2004) describe the

objectives of the process as to satisfy the customer using a minimum amount of

resources. One of the key principles of Lean manufacturing is the focus on process flow

(Liker, 2004). The flow is the heart of the lean message. Shortening the elapsed time

from raw materials to finished goods will lead to the best quality, lowest cost, and

shortest delivery time. A common misunderstanding when it comes to lean

manufacturing is that it cannot be implemented in low volume manufacturing as most of

the aerospace industry. But by grouping the low volume parts into families that utilise

the same or similar method of manufacture, it is possible to focus the improvements on

the whole family rather than the single parts, see Figure 9. (Johansson, 2005)

Low volume manufactures like the aerospace industry need to group parts into families

that follow the same process flow. These families can successfully be used to plan the

production and reduce waste more quickly. During the analysis, it has been realised that

money and time can be saved if more than one part can be manufactured using similar,

or even better, the same machines, tools and fixtures. This will also require maintenance

on less equipment and investments will more quickly be paid off. Standardising these

items will also reduce the demand of training for operators since they have to use less

machines, fixtures and tools.

Figure 9. Grouping parts that have same or similar method of manufacture enables improvements to be applied

for the whole family rather than single parts.

To some extent, any kind of information could potentially be generalised to a family level.

To gain as much advantage as possible, it is beneficial to strive towards building up



51

comprehensive families. The extent of the families will depend on the future work of

standardisation through out the company.

Identified through the analysis in Chapter 5 and requirements from the Rolls-Royce

Quality Management System, the information that should be included in the family level

would cover the following categories (see Appendix 5):

• Condition of supply

• Datum story

• Operation sequence

• Tooling

• Fixturisation

• Inspection and measurement strategy

• Conformance control features

• Component care

• Analysis

• Deviation record

• Shop floor layout, Appendix 6

• Work handling, including:

Internal transportation

Packaging

Storage

External transportation

8.2.3 Part specific level

Even if it is beneficial to standardise most of the information to a family level, it has been

realised during the investigations that there will always be information that will have to

be specific for one part. What it will be and to what level of detail will all depend on the

part, type of product and how far the standardisation has progressed for the family the

part belongs to. However, based upon the analysis in Chapter 5 and the requirements

from the Rolls-Royce Quality Management System, the information that mostly will be

part specific and need to be defined for each part is:

• Detailed operation sequence

• Operation specific details such as:

Resource details

Tool and fixture drawing

Speeds and feeds

NC/CNC/CMM program

Stage drawing (detailed manufacturing stage geometry)

Technical instruction, Appendix 7

Cutting fluid



52

• Condition of Supply drawing

• Bill of material

• Quality standard and specification

• Dimensional characteristic matrix, Appendix 8

8.3 DATA, INFORMATION AND KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

Davenport & Prusak (1998) explain that a keystone to success is how data, information

and knowledge are understood and managed. To become successful and more efficient, it

is important that data, information and knowledge are easily accessed and

communicated through proper means (Oakland, 1993).

To improve the communication and the retention of information at Rolls-Royce, the

suggested communication solution has been divided into five areas:

• Method of Manufacture and Intent report, Appendix 5

• Method of Manufacture Geometry, Appendix 9

• Component Feature Buy Off sheet, Appendix 10

• Communication sheet, Appendix 11

• Technical Instructions, Appendix 7

8.3.1 Method of manufacture and intent report

The technical specifications and the intent behind decisions can be captured in a report to

help other engineers to understand why a certain solution has been chosen. This will

stimulate and trigger new products to be developed and planned in accordance with

previous parts and families rather than inventing a new solution. The idea with this

report is not only to capture the technical information but also the intent and thought

process behind the decisions. Ideally at least two options are compared and graded

towards each other. Because of the big labour turnover identified during the surveys, this

is important to make sure the information and intent is saved.

The structure of the technical package information is already divided into family and part

specific level so there is a need for two documents to represent them both. Because

some of the technical information sits in the ERP system (Enterprise Resource Planning)

there is no need to duplicate that information into the report, but a reference is required.

The way of writing the reports shall follow the guidelines for writing the Toyota A3

reports but as well as SELLS’ lesson learnt documents, see Chapter 4. It is crucial to keep

it concise and pictorial wherever possible. The A3 report is a simple and efficient way of

transfer information to all levels within the company (Liker & Miller, 2004).



53

8.3.2 Method of Manufacture Geometry

During the analysis, it has been identified a need for improving the communication of the

method of manufacture. For this to be done effectively, it will have to be presented and

communicated in a visual way (Liker & Miller, 2004). To ensure that people take time to

read it, it requires that the story is told in a pictorial form and contains just a few words.

Toyota has solved this by writing their reports in an A3 format; see Chapter 4.7.3.

Describing the whole method of manufacture on one page similar to Toyotas A3 reports

will enable people to easily get a basic understanding of what the process is going to

achieve. To share and communicate the most important details of the method of

manufacture, a geometry change document has been developed by the project group,

see Appendix 9. One version of the document already existed in one Rolls-Rolls plant, but

extra information has been added to extend the content further. The content of the

document has been developed based upon interviews with manufacturing engineers at

Rolls-Royce. The purpose is to visually illustrate the high level method of manufacture for

the family, detailing the change of geometry and include:

• Machining datums

• Drawings datums

• Location points

• Clamping points

• Key features and dimension range within the family

• Non visual information that also should be included is:

• Operation description

• Operations details including machine or process

• Non-geometrical operations listed

• Key issues

• Specifications and standards

It is suggested that the document is used when discussing fixture strategy, measurement

strategy, method improvements, internal benchmarking on methods, agreeing the family

method of manufacture and finally for design engineers to better understand

manufacturing when developing new engines.



54

8.3.3 Component Feature Buy Off sheet

While design engineers are developing new components, there will have to be a

continuing dialogue with manufacturing to ensure the design will be in line with what is

achievable. Seen at Rolls-Royce is that this communication need improvements. Once all

the features and dimensions are designed, there will be one last formal buy off to ensure

that there is an agreement between design and manufacturing. This will be made on a

Component Feature Buy Off sheet, see Appendix 10, and contain a list of all the features

including:

• Position of feature on drawing

• Dimension and tolerance

• If a change is required by manufacturing

• Signature from both design and manufacturing

This document has successfully been used at the plants in Rolls-Royce Deutschland and

issues with standards have been solved before serial production has started.

Manufacturing engineers have also had the opportunity to discuss the design and make

suggestions of changes.

8.3.4 Communication sheet

To retain and understand the decisions made between two engineers, the communication

should be formalised on communication sheets, Appendix 11. Attached to this sheet can

be emails, sketches or any other notes. The reason for this is to ensure that what is

normally an informal decision and seen as insignificant, now will be retained as a part of

the planning intent. Communication sheets are only used between design engineers and

manufacturing engineers today, however it would be beneficial if formal communication

between manufacturing engineers also is stored. This would help others to understand

why certain decisions are taken to avoid double work and explain why the process is

designed as it is today.

8.3.5 Technical Instruction

Once the method of manufacture has been planned and decided it needs to be translated

into a working procedure, not only including the technical details but also the practical

knacks that have an impact on the result. This is important to make sure the variables

are controlled (Chrysler, Ford & General Motors, 1995). The level of details in this

document will all depend on the complexity of the operation but as well on the skill of the

operator. This has to be an agreement between the manufacturing engineer and the

operators. A guideline is that the steps of the procedure that will or can have an impact



55

on the final result, and are also likely to be carried out differently depending on the

operator, need to be specified in more detail. The format these instructions should be

delivered in need to be in a standardised, clear and structured way. One reason for this is

to fulfil the future CAPP system requirements. It is also important that it can be

supported by pictures, sketches or other visual methods to clarify and highlight details,

as this is one of the strongest means of communication (Oakland, 1993).


Discussion

57

9 Discussion

In this chapter the solution and recommendation will be discussed in a critical way. Gap

and flaws in the solution will be highlighted as a ground for future development.

9.1 RESEARCH STRATEGY

When the big survey regarding technical documents was carried out in the beginning of

the project, the size of the project was unknown. The purpose of the survey was to

investigate what kind of information was stored, how it was delivered and how they

linked in to each other. Since the authors initially did not have much knowledge of how

Rolls-Royce was organised and how the business units worked, the first visits were

randomly carried out. Meetings were booked with people in different levels, from the

Head of Laboratories to manufacturing engineers at the various plants. During these

interviews the knowledge around the document structure started to grow. It was also a

great learning forum since explanations were given about why certain information is

required at different stages in the manufacturing process. The negative aspect of working

in this way is that it makes it very difficult to analyse the information before you have the

required knowledge when it comes to company standards and procedures. With more

knowledge and a more structured way of collecting data, the result might have been

different. With more knowledge around the subject when it started, it would have been

possible to make a more accurate judgement of how the data should have been

collected.


Discussion

58

A majority of the interviews were carried out in an unstructured way. A weakness of

using this particular method is that if the questioner has a strong opinion he might ask

leading question and the result is not objective. Another weakness could be a lack of

continuity in the questions asked. Is it then possible to compare the result of several

interviews?

Rolls-Royce is a big company, with almost 40,000 employees. To study all kinds of

technical documentation will take an awful lot of time. Instead a lot of trust was put on

the interviewed people and the manufacturing engineers that were helping with the

collection of technical packages.

The further the project kept going the more knowledge was gained and missing

information could be captured. The suggested solution was tested and developed through

minor pilots. Initially the project group carried them out, but after shown successful,

manufacturing engineers in many plants carried out larger pilots. This has been a very

good way to work since it gives a lot of experience and knowledge to try the solutions

before implementing them. At the same time it makes it possible to correct issues in an

early state. Unfortunately pilots takes longer time to carry it out, but builds up

confidence in the result and makes it easier to support larger pilots later on in the

project. It is also a good way to get buy-in to the solution when many people are

involved and can feel involvedness of the project. On the other hand, in some of the

pilots the interest of participation was low, which slowed down the work. A lot of time

was spent to chase people to try the solutions instead of developing new ideas based

upon the outcome of the pilot.

Because a lot of the solutions will contain a higher workload initially, it might not be

possible to implement the solutions as quickly as recommended. The suggested solution

will not automatically solve all issues described in the report. However it will raise the

awareness of preventing issues and make people to think a second time before taking a

decision. It will also help people to save the history in a structured way. Toyota uses a

methodology called ‘5 why’s’ which means that you should ask the question ‘why?’ five

times to reach the root of the issue (Liker, 2004). The suggested solution does not

contain this methodology, however by documenting information, you will automatically

question some decisions. This could include the whole method of manufacture or just

raise the question why grinding is used instead of hard turning.


Discussion

59

9.2 RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY

Reliability is the consistency of a measurement, in other words the repeatability. Validity

is about how valid the area of measurement is. Were the correct variables measured?

(Collins, 2006)

A risk while working with qualitative data is that only opinions from dominant people may

be captured. The size of the project group can also have impact if one person in the

group has strong impact on the others. The reliability of the document analysis can be

assumed to be accurate since the result has been presented around the plants and most

of the attendances have confirmed the result to be realistic.

The Rolls-Royce Quality Management System includes a large amount of standards and

procedures that take time to familiarise oneself with. Initially when the data analysis was

carried out, all content of the documents were not understood. This could have affected

the result of the analysis in a negative way. Because the data collection was not spread

out in a statistically correct way it is difficult to say for sure that the result reflects the

whole company. The number of documents analysed from one certain plant have not

necessarily matched the analysis from another one. It is more the variation of documents

that has been studied. If hundred new documents had been collected and analysed

today, the result would have probably been slightly different. It is also difficult to say if

the collected examples are the normal type of documents, the best example or one of the

poorer ones from those sites. However, this has not affected the content of the

suggested solution and how well it fulfil the requirements in chapter 7 “Requirements for

Solution”, but it has affected the analysis of the currant state.

The suggested solution has been developed together with many involved people within

Rolls-Royce, all with different backgrounds. Some of them have worked in the company

for over forty years and some just a couple of months. There is a great mix of

experiences with people from other industries, mainly from major automotive companies.

The suggested solution has shown great success within the automotive industry and

fractions of it have been successfully used in areas within Rolls-Royce. All suggested

sections of the solution have also been tried out in pilots during this project. There are

still doubts among some people that the suggested solutions will fall out well in the

aerospace industry since there are big differences in the way of work compared to the

automotive industry.


Discussion

60

In terms of how well the suggested solution fulfil the requirements in chapter 7,

“Requirements for Solution”, it is somehow difficult to completely determine as many of

the improvements will be shown after that the solution has really been implemented and

evaluated. However, the suggested solution does fulfil the requirements around the

issues with incapable processes through quality control techniques from the automotive

industry. It also approaches the requirement of information management with a clear

structure and tools that have been proven to improve the communication and retention

of technical information at some sites where it already has been tried out.

9.3 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

The research was limited by the geographical locations of the manufacturing sites at

Rolls-Royce. It was easy to travel around to the plants within the United Kingdom and

study documents, interview people and observe the production. Unfortunately it is very

expensive to have the opportunity to visit all plants during a study like this. However,

since documents were sent by mail it was possible to evaluate some examples from

Germany and North America as well.

Because of the size of the subject, solutions have only been focused on the

manufacturing side of the process and nothing from a design point of view has been

taken under consideration. To have a complete family and process focus when

introducing new products, it is important to close the gap in the solution between the

design and manufacturing phase.

9.4 FUTURE WORK

The objective with this thesis was to identify the currant state and define a new standard

for the Rolls-Royce manufacturing technical package. To define a standard of this size

and complexity takes time and need to be piloted many times. The focus of this thesis

has been on a relatively high level and the detailed methodologies have not been

developed. Further pilots will be required to enable successful implementation. Exactly

how much time and extra resources to train people in the new way is still to be

established.

9.5 GENERALISATION

The result of this thesis will most likely be applicable to other manufacturing companies,

since all companies handle manufacturing information in some context. The result mostly


Discussion

61

contains methods that have shown to be beneficial within the automotive industry. The

development of the solution has been with focus on big organisations with a lot of

resources. Smaller companies might have issues to make time available for the

development of the necessary technical information described in this thesis.


Recommendation

63

10 Recommendation

This section will go through the project group’s recommendations to Rolls-Royce.

To install a new standard is a huge task and will consume a lot of resources. It will also

demand a strong encouragement and support from the management. The involved

people also need to understand that this will take many years to develop and the work

has to be started from the roots and then be built up step by step. There are no

shortcuts to a build up stable method to handle technical information.

10.1 PROCESS LEVEL

The most important improvements at Rolls-Royce are within the process level. It needs

to be taken under control as quickly as possible. The understanding of quality and

process control needs to be widely taught to all the people involved in the manufacturing.

Tools and techniques like PFMEA, Control Plans and other quality related subjects are key

to gain and maintain control. Meanwhile training all employees, one or a couple of quality

improvement teams, consisting of experts and factory level workers, should start

improving using suggested tools. Once they have established best practice of the

methodology, it should be summarised in A3 reports and one to two hours of training

material that then can be shared across the whole company.


Recommendation

64

10.2 FAMILY LEVEL

Because the method of manufacture and parts have been developed without a common

family focus, it will be difficult to quickly group parts together. The families need to be

progressively built up on factory level. A cross functional group of people need to

establish what families exist, or could exist. Through controlled steps of changes the

parts can then move towards each other, in the sense of method of manufacture. As

standardisation progresses, more and more information should be lifted to the family

level and be generalised for the parts in the group. From these definitions of families, the

design engineers should then also start developing the new parts in line with them. Once

the structure and best practice have been established for the different commodities, it

can then be standardised globally throughout Rolls-Royce. As a family owner, the

Commodity Leader has to take responsibility for the family and drive the development for

new parts to be aligned. In this way the focus and families will come from the realisation

of the part, and the understanding be reversed up to the design level. It may not be

possible to immediately group all parts with the same function into one and the same

family. Instead sub-groups have to exist in the beginning, however ideally the further the

development moves forward, the closer it can become one family.

10.3 PART LEVEL

Because the company has a great number of parts in production, it would be an

enormous task to structure the different technical packages in the new way. The intent

behind the decisions would also be impossible to capture when a lot of it have been

forgotten and involved people have moved out from the company or cannot be traced.

The new standard would instead be used for new part introduction and major changes to

the current method of manufacture.

10.4 COMMUNICATION

As with the part level, the feature buy off sheet and the manufacture and intent reports

will have to be created for new part introductions and mayor changes to the current

methods in use. It would not be realistic to go through all existing documentation and

transform it into the new standard. However, the creation of the pictorial A3 method of

manufacture documents could be initiated on parts that are most likely to represent a

future family. The new format for technical instructions should also be initiated, but only

when the current ones are updated or new ones are created.


References

References

PRINTED SOURCES

Allen, K. (2007) JES 208 Component traceability and manufacturing history, issue 9, Rolls-Royce Quality Management System

Bergman, B. & Klefsjö, B. (2004) Quality from customer needs to customer satisfaction, Lund: Studentlitteratur ISBN-13: 978-9144041667

Besterfield (1995) Total Quality Management, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc. ISBN-13: 978-0130306517

Chrysler Corporation, Ford Motor Company, and General Motors Corporation (1995) Advanced Product Quality Planning and Control Plan (APQP), United Kingdom: Adare Carwin. ASIN: B000V9KHEO

Collins (2006) Collins English Dictionary, Glasgow: HarperCollins Publishers ISBN-13: 978-0-00-722384-8

Crosby, P. (1979) Quality is free, New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc. ISBN-13: 978-0070145122

Dale, B. (2003) Managing Quality (Fourth edition), Malden: Blackwell Publishing Ltd. ISBN 0631236147

Davenport, T. & Prusak, L. (1998) Working Knowledge: How organizations manage what they know, Boston, Massachusetts: Harvard Business School Press. ISBN-13: 978-0875846552

George, M. (2002) Lean Six Sigma: Combining Sex Sigma Quality with Lean Speed, New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc. ISBN-13: 978-0071385213

Goetsch, D. & Stanley, D. (1997) Introduction to Total Quality (Second edition), New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc. ISBN-13: 2325217

Hunt, S. (2006) The introduction of a knowledge based documentation architecture to support quality deployment, Cranfield University, School of applied sciences, MSc Thesis, Academic year 2004-2006

Imai, M. (1986) Kaizen: The Key to Japan’s Competitive Success, New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc. ISBN-13: 978-0075543329

Johansson, O. (2005) Kompendium: Lean Production –Ett strukturerat sunt bondförnuft, Part Development AB

Juran, J. (1988) Juran’s Quality Control Handbook (fourth edition), New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc. ISBN-13: 978-0070331761

Kalpakjian, S. & Schmid, S. (2006) Manufacturing Engineering and Technology (Fifth Edition), New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc. ISBN-13: 978-0131489653


References

Krajewski, L. & Ritzman L. (2005) Operations Management – Process and Value Chains (Seventh Edition), New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc. ISBN-13: 978-0131273108

Liker, J. (2004) The Toyota Way, New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc. ISBN-13: 978-0071392310

Liker, J. & Meier, D. (2006) The Toyota Way Fieldbook, New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc. ISBN-13: 978-0071448932

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Montgomery, D. (2005) Introduction to Statistical Quality Control, Danvers: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN-13: 978-0471661221

Nonaka, I. & Takeuchi, H. (1995) The Knowledge –Creating Company, New York: Oxford University Press, Inc. ISBN-13: 978-0195092691

Oakland, J. (1993) Total Quality Management (Second edition), Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann Ltd. ISBN-13: 978-0750609937

Patton, Michael Quinn (2001), Qualitative Evaluation and Research Methods (Third edition), Newbury Park: Sage Publications ISBN-13: 9780761919711

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Appendices

Appendices




4. Control Plan










I


TOYOTA WRITING TIPS FOR A3 REPORTS

• Avoid excessive verbiage; a picture is worth a thousand

words.

• Use a consistent format for similar information.

• Use line graphs because they show the trend of an issue

better.

• If you must use words, use bulleted statements rather

than sentences.

• Make sure that any charts, graphs or wording is sized so

it is easily read.

• When using comparison tool such as a pie chart or

Pareto chart, avoid comparing too many issues since this

will make the data very small and difficult to read.

• Avoid the use of coloured charts and graphs if it needs

to be photocopied to black and white.

• Use arrows to show the flow of information so the reader

knows the relationship of each part of the story.

• Avoid acronyms and technical terminology.

• Make sure that the story is carefully spaced and

elements are aligned.



I

2. SELLS Writing Tips for Lesson Learned

Document.

• Avoid the use of local nicknames, individuals’ names, and site-specific acronyms unless they are critical to understanding the event

• Minimize the use of acronyms and spell them out on their first appearance, if used

• Write in conversational language using active verbs. Readers learn best from external experiences that are conveyed as stories

• If the information is preliminary, tell the reader and provide additional updates and information when available

• Check reporting systems for similar events that might indicate a trend

• Verify the sensitivity of the information. Obtain classification reviews if applicable

• Include citations to regulations or consensus standards that relate to the lessons learned

• Ensure that all individuals listed as points of contact have confirmed their contact information and given permission for their name to be listed in the document

• Validate the factual accuracy of the information and ensure that all necessary reviews are completed

• If you are distributing the information through a Lessons Learned List Server, ensure that all required information is included



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3. Process Failure Modes and Effects Analysis

(PFMEA)


4. Control Plan

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4. Control Plan


4. Control Plan

II



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III



IV



V



VI



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III



IV



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Because of appendix’s classification it can not be published.



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