Click Here for Printable pdf Version of Sikorsky Client Success Story

Lean helping firm manage growth, meet demands

Industry                                                                               
Helicopter Mfg.

Company City
Troy               

Company State
Alabama                                             

Company Name                                                                     
Sikorsky Aircraft Corp.             

Project/Activity Year
Continuous Improvement / 2008-2009

Company Profile
Sikorsky is a pioneer in the aviation field of vertical flight, and its commercial and military helicopters are found in service worldwide. Two models among the firm’s Seahawk family – the maritime version of Sikorsky’s military Blackhawk helicopter – are built at the company’s Troy, Ala. manufacturing plant.

Situation
Auburn Technical Assistance Center is working with Sikorsky’s Troy plant to implement lean manufacturing techniques that are proving to produce significant efficiency improvements and cost benefits as the company ramps up production to meet heavy customer demands.

Solution
Editor’s Note: Two models among Sikorsky’s Seahawk family – the maritime version of its military Blackhawk helicopter – are built at the company’s Troy, Ala. manufacturing plant. The MH-60R, provides powerful new capabilities to the U.S. Naval and Coast Guard fleets with digital cockpits and mission-adaptive systems. The Troy plant also produces the S-70B Seahawk Anti-Submarine Warfare/Anti-Surface Warfare helicopter for its international customers.

It has been a challenge growing from 180 employees to some 670 in an 18-month period, but for Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. in Troy, Ala., implementing lean during this growth surge has helped it to manage the expansion more effectively while significantly shortening the efficiency curve to meet increased customer demands.

“We are seeing production lead and cycle times being reduced on our assembly lines in almost daily increments,” said Sikorsky Production Control Manager Eric Scott. “Along with lead and cycle time improvements, we are reducing waste and creating more efficient product flow through the manufacturing processes.”

Facing an increase in both U.S. and international product orders, Sikorsky enlisted lean implementation assistance from the Auburn Technical Assistance Center (ATAC) in early 2007.

“We knew that we were going to have to make some rapid and drastic changes in our production operation over the coming months,” Scott said. “And we knew that we needed outside assistance to do that most successfully.”

That same year, ATAC delivered a sequence of in-depth lean training events and began facilitation of process improvement programs – kaizen events – in various production areas. That assistance is ongoing, but over the past year and one-half, Sikorsky has noted significant improvements and cost savings that continue to multiply.


Results
“In 2007, we produced eight completed helicopter airframes,” Scott noted. “However, through our kaizen events and lean implementation activities, we anticipate that we will deliver 36 by the end of 2008.”

ATAC has to date, facilitated kaizen events in the five production areas of the Lower Nose Assembly Unit; Tail Cone Assembly Unit; Upper Aft Assembly Unit; the Join Area; and conducted a Value Stream Mapping event of the Warehouse for future improvement.

“We have decreased production lead time by days and have reduced production hours by hundreds – and in some areas – more than a thousand hours,” Scott said. “We are seeing our trend lines drop where they need to be dropping. All of this can be attributed to the improvements that we are making to our processes through the implementation of lean and training our people.”

Scott says that Sikorsky’s partnership with ATAC is a big factor in enabling the firm to successfully manage this period of fast growth and high production demand.

“Every unit that ATAC has worked with us on has shown dramatic improvement,” Scott said. “This is a momentum that we want to continue.”

Scott says that Sikorsky is still collecting data from the original three kaizen events as well as the most recent events conducted in the Warehouse and Join Area where the cabin and tail sections of the helicopter are joined together to form the complete airframe.

“As this trend continues, we are looking at achieving some efficiency improvements that will translate into thousands of hours in saved production time and rework, which translates into hundreds of thousands of dollars, or even millions, over a given production year,” Scott said.

Testimonial
“Every unit that ATAC has worked with us on has shown dramatic improvement,” Scott said. “This is a momentum that we want to continue.”