Aerospace India Limited

Aerospace India Limited

We are dealing with the case of Aerospace India Limited (AIL) which has been serving the needs of Indian defense sector from a long period .for the past 20 years Indian defense sector is fulfilling their requirement from AIL. To manufacture various components of aerospace sector the company has four divisions. Unit 1 was established in 1970 in order to manufacture components for helicopters. At machine Shop Unit 1, entire machining of about 2230 components required for various version are done. The case at the beginning describes that how "The Machine Shop" is responsible for manufacturing all the components .In the existing set -up the machine shop is headed by senior manager and is assisted by one manager and one deputy manager. After this the case describes about the manufacturing requirement for new products. The company came to a point that the manufacturing requirements of new products are not much different from the existing one. After this several reasons are discussed that derives the company from being product focus, and problems with existing set up. It is said by senior manager that, two different projects cannot be managed by exiting set-up. Some of the reasons for this are:

* Increase in the cycle due to functional layout

* Material handling distance is large as facilities are not in near proximity. High frequency of material handling because of number of operation

* Increased reliabity of follow up group, who are there to chase the components

* Absence of product focus

* Delay in staring the assemblies because required products are still under progress.

* Increase in batch quantity.

* No detection of errors at early stages, due to imbalance in load.

* Increase in non-value-added activities and lead-time significantly.

* Reduction in component traceability with increase in batch size.

* Creating environment against multi-functional skills

* Reduction in, group discussions due functional set-up leads to absence of team spirit.

"The idea behind a DFM effort is to modify the existing product's (and/or its components') design or have a new product designed in such a way that the processes to manufacture the same are easier, quicker and or less expensive. Reducing the manufacturing time is a major consideration. This, of course, has to be achieved without compromising on quality."

Mr.