Plan against chaos: UAC is developing new planning systems for the production of aircraft
Successful aircraft manufacturers have always been distinguished by strong planning. Today, at most of its plants, United Aircraft Corporation is introducing a new automated planning and monitoring system. One of the ambitious goals of these projects is a reduction in the duration of the aircraft assembly cycle and an increase in labor productivity.
A modern aircraft - apart from the design, technology, designation and performance characteristics - is a product consisting of hundreds of thousands of elements - materials, parts, purchased components. And the plane is assembled from them not immediately, but through blanks, assembly units, aggregates. The process goes from small to large - to the compartments, tanks, parts of the wing. Moreover, the entire production process is extended in cycles for months.
Recently, an automated planning system was introduced by the Russian Aircraft Building Corporation (RSK) MiG. In 2016, the corporation completed a four-year project to increase the capacity of the fighter assembly line at the No. XXUMX production complex located in the town of Lukhovitsy, Moscow Region, from six to 1 machines per year, said Oleg Irkhin, head of the RAC MiG management organization. RAC "MiG" has implemented several projects of automated control systems both of its own design and third-party contractors. They will serve to improve the accuracy of planning and tracking the progress of operations. One of the important parts of the project is related to the work of the domestic company “Wrightstep”, says Irkhin.
“A few years ago, the United Aircraft Corporation began the implementation of automated planning systems at key sites - the Novosibirsk Aviation Plant. V.P. Chkalov, Komsomolsk-on-Amur Aviation Plant. Yu. A. Gagarin (included in the company "Sukhoi"), as well as at enterprises in Voronezh and in Moscow. Often, the Wrightstep company acted as a UAC partner, ”said Peter Golubev, an adviser to the UAC president. - And to fully assess the correctness of the system takes about three years. Just so much time has passed on the majority of enterprises where the system has earned. ”
The Soviet system does not mean the “best”
“In the USSR, there was a simple and effective, for those conditions, production management system. Unfortunately, it turned out to be absolutely inapplicable now. Working conditions have become different, ”says Sergey Peterkin, Wrightstep managing partner.
In pre-perestroika times, the system worked for large-scale production - then a hundred civilian aircraft were produced annually. A relatively short period of entering the machine into the series - and the plant began to produce several almost identical products per month. Today, for example, in civil aviationThe series have become much smaller. A separate machine may be, if not unique, then different from others. Accordingly, if you work according to the previous system, for each product you need to conduct your own calculation of advance and backlog groups.
“Pull” correctly
Wrightstep specialists (the headquarters of the company is located in St. Petersburg) are engaged in the implementation of the Planning and Monitoring System both in the aircraft industry and in related industries - helicopter manufacturing, at some Roscosmos enterprises.
One of the key management principles introduced with the new system is the transition to the so-called “pulling” custom-made production principle. In this system, procurement planning is carried out for thousands of components “tied” to a specific final machine in a specific, for each customer configuration and with a release date. Each product (each order) is planned from this date (or from the “take-off date”) “back "According to the time of the workshop production of assemblies and parts and the time of purchased or cooperative positions, with an accuracy of one or several days, and" down "and" down "- with disassembly throughout the structure of the product, according to its technological composition," to ore ", t. e. to Precision up to the "workshop". In this case, it is desirable that the Composition of the product was conducted and entered into the DMA from the PDM system (from the Product Data Management - product data management system), that is, from the organizational and technical system that manages all the information about the product.
SPM rigidly determines the "order" management, in which each aircraft is planned and controlled in production separately, according to its composition, determined by a specific serial number. And at the same time, the peculiarity of SPM is that for each product both a “directive” (“as it should be”) and a “calculated” (as it turns out) production and procurement plan are formed. And for each position of the product of the order - not only release, but also its launch into production and supply. At the same time, the “directive” plan can be set up with an arbitrarily (elevating for the plant) level of “rigidity”, ideally for production / procurement “just in time”. And through this, to save the company from many of today's "ills", for example, from the overstocking of warehouses, from the production of a series of parts "in reserve".
Response and Accounting - Now Online
The capacity of the assembly line of the MiG-29 fighters has increased from six to 24 machines per year.
One of the conditions for successful operation of the “pulling” system is the establishment of data exchange. Computer programs allow online monitoring of what is happening throughout the production and logistics chain with a constant and simple indication of deviations from the plan. For example, earlier when assembling a MiG-29 fighter, colleagues of Oleg Irkhin tracked key positions around 200. Now, with the translation of planning and monitoring in the Wrightstep JMP, the order of the 900 parameters is controlled. As a result, the volume of analyzed data has significantly increased. “For example, our old systems controlled only the complete assembly stage. New software allows you to “see” also the beginning of this process. So we can influence all stages of production in real time, ”says Irkhin.
“It is important that the data are correct and correctly processed. Otherwise, the automated system will simply turn into automated chaos, ”says Peter Golubev.
Planning and rescheduling are often done - at least every few days. This allows you to quickly take into account arising in the process of production or purchase deviations. SCM-methods (from Supply Chain Management - supply chain management) and computational algorithms are used, namely, modeling the supply chain of the plant and its environment.
The basic postulate of system dynamics says that the efficiency of the production system depends primarily on the “response speed” - on the system response time to external or internal changes. The higher the reaction rate, the more effective the system, including in monetary terms. For our real production, this means fast and constant (ideally daily) re-planning, taking into account all the changes taking place on and off the plant. In practical application, this translates into rapid and frequent rescheduling of the entire production and logistics chain.
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