Being a supplier within the aerospace business can be a challenge. The major OEMs have dramatically increased their flagship production rate. Introduction cycles for new innovations and changes have been intensely reduced. In addition, the entire supply chain is asked to lower unit costs year over year.
If this sounds familiar, you may be feeling the pressure to reduce costs within your own organization. Wouldn’t it be nice to shift your focus back to manufacturing innovative products vs chasing paperwork and correcting quality issues?
There are three major areas for improved supplier efficiencies that result in significant cost savings:
- Effective collaboration and communication with your customers
- Optimized production schedules based on capabilities, resources, and customer demands
- Efficient quality management
All these initiatives can easily be achieved using a digital platform to optimize processes and customer collaboration. With the proper solution in place, you can take full action to gain immediate benefits for your company.
As a supply chain leader, your key task is to find the optimal processes to manufacture parts for your customers, based on their quality standards. Inevitably you will be faced with constraints that involve resources, machines, tools and parts. Rework or quality issues result in missed expectations, increasing cost and production time. Success comes when your manufactured parts are delivered to the quality, time and cost specifications set forth by the customer.
An integrated quality solution will ensure quality information is transparent throughout the manufacturing process to identify problems early and drive continuous improvement. The ability to pass quality information and customer expectations to the shop floor is critical. It is necessary to establish a level of transparency that starts with the customer and extends to all parties involved in the manufacturing process.
Furthermore, an efficient quality planning and execution process can reduce overall manufacturing time. Often manufacturing is waiting on quality or customer approvals. This wait time can have a significant impact on the utilization of the machines and inventory that is sitting on the shop floor. These inefficiencies can be avoided by implementing an improved workflow using an integrated quality management solution that provides the approval information via an interactive supplier portal.
Ineffective management of first article inspection or the non-conformance and corrective action process can not only be cumbersome, but also consume manufacturing resources that could otherwise focus on an increase of machine utilization. This may seem obvious, but in many midsize A&D companies machine utilization is impacted by the lack of an efficient quality process. Often enough there are additional challenges for smaller companies, especially around quality audits, certifications or tracing of counterfeit parts. An effective quality management solution automates the quality audit and inspection processes to improve outcomes.
The TIPQA™ Quality Management Solution build on SAP HANA allows midsize companies to focus on increased machine and resource efficiencies by providing the necessary capabilities to effectively manage the quality process. The interface between TIPQA and SAP ERP provides a seamless integration of quality and manufacturing data, enabling better business decisions.
“The implementation of the latest TIPQA software with the SAP Certified Interface has significantly impacted our manufacturing processes at Labinal Power Systems by reducing duplicate entry in our receiving inspection process,” said Craig Parker, Quality Administrator. “Initial improvements indicate a projected 25% decrease in receiving inspection flow time, which will provide an exceptional return to our organization.”
The combination of TIPQA and SAP allows midsize A&D companies to operate more effectively to ensure consistent delivery of high-quality products. With this integrated solution, companies can remain agile in an evolving A&D industry and increase their competitive advantage.
About TIP Technologies
TIP Technologies (www.tiptech.com) was a pioneer and continues to be the recognized leader in quality assurance software. Founded in 1989, the company was one of the first to provide integrated quality assurance software using a commercial, off-the-shelf strategy. With companies around the world, continuously and successfully deploying TIPQA, TIP Technologies focuses on serving the needs of companies in regulated discrete manufacturing industries. We don’t just create quality assurance software. When it comes to compliance, traceability and global supplier management, we deliver peace of mind. TIP Technologies is headquartered in Milwaukee, WI, with additional operations representing EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) APAC (Asia, Pacific, China), and North America. For more information, please visit http://www.tiptech.com or contact us at (262) 544-1211.
About SAP
SAP is the world leader in enterprise applications in terms of software and software-related service revenue. Based on market capitalization, we are the world’s third largest independent software manufacturer. From pioneering ERP software to new offerings like the SAP HANA in-memory computing platform, SAP innovation goes beyond software – we’re developing breakthrough technologies that shape IT and business trends across many industries, including aerospace and defense. From human resources to finance and analytics, we have the right solutions to run your aerospace and defense business better, faster, and simpler enterprise-wide. To build a connected business and enable continuous growth, SAP has comprehensive solutions that address aerospace and defense’s most pressing topics including government contracting, complex manufacturing, cybersecurity, supply and logistics, MRO, and much more. For more on SAP’s aerospace and defense sector, visit sap.com/industries/aerospace-defense.html or take a look at How Aerospace and Defense Companies Can Benefit from SAP S/4HANA and SAP Leonardo.