MRO Today - Lockheed Martin Aeronautics: Solutions Inc.

Solutions Inc.
Plant engineering at Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Fort Worth facility turned industry-wide adversity into an opportunity to transform itself

by Paul V. Arnold

The 1980s were a great time for the defense industry.

The decade was fraught with "us vs. them" tension.

The Soviet Union was "the evil empire." The Doomsday Clock ticked. And, television exposed us to The Day After.

From 1981 through 1989, the United States spent $4 trillion on the military, including $327 billion per year during Ronald Reagans two terms as president and $376 billion in George H. Bushs first 12 months in office.

As the 80s closed, the sprawling military aircraft plant in Fort Worth, Texas, known today as Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, built nearly one F-16 fighter jet per day and employed 34,000 workers.

But along came Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985. Along came glasnost and perestroika. The Berlin Wall fell Nov. 9, 1989. Gorbachev won the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize. The Soviet Union crumbled into 15 separate nations on Dec. 21, 1991.

When the 1990s ended, Moscow was the home of Lenins tomb and seven McDonalds restaurants.

In the U.S., defense workers felt the pinch. The Fort Worth plant produced one F-16 per week and employed 11,000 workers.

Global changes forced Lockheed Martin Aeronautics employees to approach their jobs differently. Either adapt and think creatively, or wait for the next round of job cuts.

"In such times, change becomes a matter of personal necessity," says LMA employee Bruce Meyers.

In Fort Worth, no department exemplifies the opportunist/survivalist view better than plant engineering.

Once seen as an adversary to production, a cost center and "the department that fixes broken things," plant engineering turned itself into a forward-thinking problem solver, a proactive service provider and a value-added partner.

With business savvy, technical skills, marketing flair and customer focus, the department operates like a company within the company.

Think of it as Solutions Inc.

Learning a foreign language
"Were indirect labor. The only thing we have to sell is service service and solutions. Thats the department, the business, were in," says plant engineering manager Dennis Elmore. "Without that, without customers feeling we add value, we probably wouldnt be here. You have to earn your keep."

While service, solutions, customers and value are golden words to sales and marketing types, theyre foreign to most production support personnel.

Elmore currently oversees a crew of around 215 maintenance workers and 85 sanitation workers for this mile-long, 7 million square foot plant. In the 1980s, the maintenance figure alone topped 400.

"Were 48 percent of what we used to be. The resources shrunk in a similar manner," he says.

The industrys decline was the primary factor in the personnel and budget cuts. But Elmore and other LMA plant engineering leaders dont discount a shortfall of service, solutions and value as secondary factors.

Maintenance excelled at fixing broken machines. Elmore says emergency maintenance accounted for 80 percent of 1980s work orders. But you only get so far with a fire-fighter label.

Meyers, a plant engineering specialist who leads computerized maintenance management software and failure analysis efforts, believes a lack of communication fostered the reactive environment.

"We were making jets 24x7, so moving product out the door was the priority. However, we didnt talk with production and share our insight," he says. "And . . . they ran the machines into the ground."

All believed the situation was outside their control.

"Nobody is going to stick his or her neck out for no reason. There has to be something that forces change," he continues. "People adapt pretty readily when theyre driven by an external force a cut in manpower, budget, etc."

Change occurred when the ax began to fall on personnel and resources. Plant engineering found the need to shake things up, learn new tricks and speak those foreign words.

Receiving high marks
Fast forward to 2001 and the department bears little resemblance to its former self. In fact, youd be hard-pressed to find another maintenance corps like it.

It was a crucial element in LMA winning a 1998 IndustryWeek Ten Best Plants award, a 2000 Shingo Prize for Excellence in Manufacturing and achieving ISO 9001 and 14001 certification.

Among the goals plant engineering has set, met and raised
are to:
- reduce or eliminate unplanned disruptions to customers
- improve customer satisfaction
- push the envelope on department wrench time
- continually improve processes
- increase the life of plant assets at a reduced cost
- reduce inventories
- ensure safety and environmental protection of plant employees
- maintain and enhance the facilities appearance

The sections that follow detail the unique nature of LMA plant engineering (PE). Included are examples of efforts in equipment refurbishment, plant enhancement, downtime reduction, overall organization, continuous improvement and future excellence.

As good as (or better than) new
Johnny Creamer is a tall, solid man with steely eyes that evoke his states unofficial motto: Dont mess with Texas. However, his physical presence is in contrast to his soft-spoken nature. The big guys darn quiet, unless you get him talking about one of his pet projects, equipment refurbishment.

This equipment maintenance technical support lead firmly and excitedly tells you how plant engineering corrects past sins, impacts the bottom line and creates solutions for itself, production and the company.

Walking past a row of computer numeric control and milling machines, he points out progress and opportunities.

"These SNK (Shin Nippon Koki) machines are 20 years old. Theyve never really performed like weve liked them to," he says. "Theyre supposed to run 400 inches a minute. Theyve never done that. Theyve limped along, and weve shifted away quite a bit of work to other equipment."

The old PE department, tied by tradition and productions timetables, reactively dealt with such problems and inefficiencies.

The new PE department handles it proactively through refurbishment and retrofitting.

"Were trying to bring the (SNK) machines back to like-new standards, and even improve on that," he says. "Weve installed new controls and upgraded the axis and spindle drives. Production is going to start using the machines for more complex machining."

The programs mission statement: If its inefficient, make it efficient. If it cant be improved, dump it and find a better solution.

Plant engineering has a budget ($2 million in 2001) to enact
such changes. It spent $2.9 million on projects in 2000 and
$7.6 million since 1996. How did it get that kind of money?

By communicating with and lending insight to production, the adversarial relationship turned into a partnership. Now, production goes to bat for plant engineering.

"We work closely with them, educating them on what their machines need and why," says Elmore. "They are very interested in becoming state of the art."

More than 50 major (and diverse) pieces of equipment have been upgraded since 1996. Each year, PE works with production to prioritize and schedule projects.

Creamer is especially proud of the changes to machine controls.

"The old Westinghouse controls served us well, but their time came and went," he says. "These were double cabinets, 5 feet wide, 10 feet high and 4 feet deep. They never operated very cleanly, but we lived with that for years and years."

Servicing the 20- to 25-year-old controls was quite difficult.

"You couldnt find replacement parts," he says. "For some of the controls, our supplier was a guy from Florida who had these parts in his garage."

LMA stockpiled replacement parts in case of emergency.

Today, the controls are small, PC-based and utilize radio frequency to download parts programs.

"We dont stock spares. Siemens (the controls manufacturer) guarantees 24-hour turnaround," he says. "Its tremendously cut inventory."

The refurbishing programs next challenge is creating high-speed machining areas.

"Were going to take a 20-year-old Cincinnati and double its feed rate," he says. "The old machine runs 200 inches per minute at 3,800 rpm. Weve already sent the gearboxes to Cincinnati and had helical gears installed. We put a new control on it. Were going to buy 10,000-rpm spindles. When were done, production will have better throughput and be able to do more complex machining."

Converting yuck into pucks
Besides controls, another highly visible solution addressed aluminum chip removal from the 18 metalworking machines.

In the past, chips rode a long conveyor belt and came to rest in a huge bin outside the plant. Each machine had a filter unit to process used coolant. The problems?

Chips carried coolant on the journey to the bin. Creamer estimates bin loads were 70 percent chips and 30 percent coolant. As bins filled or overfilled, coolant spilled out, creating coolant puddles or streams in the parking lot.

It wasnt much better inside.

The inefficient conveyor and filter systems created safety and environmental hazards.

"Youd look down from the north end of the factory and see the blue haze coming from that area," says Trent Sherrill, senior manager for metallics fabrication.

If the coolant system flooded, fluid entered the machines heat exchangers and hydraulics.

On top of that, conveyors frequently jammed. A conveyor failure would halt all 18 machines.

"If you cant pass chips, you cant run," says Creamer.

The solution came from a coolant vendor and Northrop Grumman, another defense company.

PE personnel spent Christmas break 1999 installing a Metal Compression Technologies Puckmaster chip pelletizer and a Henry coolant filtration system.

Gravity carries chips and old coolant through a trough and two pumps bring the mix into the Henry system. Coolant is separated from the chips, filtered and dispersed to the machines as clean coolant. Chips drop through a flume and ride a small conveyor into the Puckmaster. That machine compresses the aluminum turnings into chunks resembling large hockey pucks. The compressing action squeezes out wayward coolant and sends it to the Henry.

The system paid for itself in 16 months.

"I used to worry about the conveyor and coolant system all the time," says Jerry Gantry, manager of machining and sheet metal. "Id worry about downtime, losing coolant pressure. I dont anymore."

Turning heads
Solutions dont have to be expensive or complex to positively impact the customer.

Lockheed Martin is a firm backer of kaizen. So, plant engineering took the continuous improvement philosophys 6S practices (sort, straighten, shine, standardize, safety and sustain) to heart. It painted the plants interior and exterior. It scrubbed the aisles and coated the floor with a colorful, glossy sealant.

To aid production in its 6S efforts, it makes boxes to hold tools, and builds Creform shelves and carts to maximize floor space. Creform is a type of plastic-coated, steel piping.

"Weve taken an ownership role. Were like the landlord of this place," says Elmore.

Meyers says such acts help the department market itself.

"We get involved in some things simply to get noticed, to sell ourselves," he says. "Most people dont know what you do. Sometimes the small things turn peoples heads. Now you can educate them on what you do and can do for them."

Listening and learning
Have customers noticed? Do they consider PE a valued partner?

To answer those questions, PE regularly sends feedback surveys to random customers. Questions include:

1) How would you rate the courtesy and professionalism of the clerk who took your request?

2) Was the problem solved to your satisfaction?

3) How would you rate our service?

The form also solicits ideas to further improve performance.

Since uptime and fast service are major issues for customers, PE creates solutions that trim time from work projects. One recent idea was material kits for preventive maintenance tasks.

Previously, if a mechanic forgot a tool or other MRO item, hed halt the PM job and head to the tool crib. In such an enormous plant, the crib might be a half-mile away.

Now, a materials person packages and sends all the necessary items to complete the job to the job site. The kit is there when the mechanic arrives.

"If you keep the guy from chasing, looking or waiting for parts, you increase wrench time considerably," says Meyers.

To boost uptime, the department continues to invest in predictive maintenance (PdM) tools. Current technologies include: vibration analysis, infrared thermography, oil analysis, ultrasound, ultrasonic thickness, motor surge, mag particle and eddy current. PdM saved the company $360,000 in 2000. And, reactive work is down to 27 percent.

"We want a positive trend," says Meyers. "That means were doing things right."

To keep the trend going upward, plant engineerings 2001 budget includes money to create a Web-based job request and status inquiry service.

"Well do everything electronically," he says. "A person will call in a work order, or request one over the intranet. When we go live, that person can go, Oh, theyre working on my order right now, or Hey, its scheduled for tomorrow. Making the jump to the electronic world will open up some things for us. We can be leaner, streamlined."

The bar has been raised
Call them heroes, call them unorthodox or call them Solutions Inc. The men and women of Lockheed Martin Aeronautics plant engineering department earn high marks. But now, theyre also subject to high expectations.

Sure, the defense industry is a shadow of its old self. In fact, nearly 70 percent of F-16 orders in the past two years have come from foreign governments, not U.S. armed services. The downturn has given PE time to transform, experiment and think outside the box.

However, business may pick up in a hurry. LMA and Boeing are battling for the contract to produce the next U.S. military aircraft program the X-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), a multipurpose stealth fighter with short takeoff and vertical landing capabilities.

The single-seat, single-engine JSF will be a highly sophisticated replacement for an aging fleet of U.S. and British warplanes, including the A-10, F-16, F/A-18 and Harrier. Government selection of a single contractor for the engineering and manufacturing development phase is set for this fall.

Can plant engineering remain Solutions Inc. if production increases twofold or more?

"Even with JSF, additional resources will be scarce," says Elmore. "Well plan and use whatever tools are available to us to provide the same level of service, or better."

Its a war this department believes it can win.

This article appeared in the February/March 2001 issue of
MRO Today magazine. Copyright, 2001.