Aerospace MBA Project Examples

Lean Techniques to Add Capacity

Most of the cost of a metrology lab is consumed by the labor involved. By analyzing all cost drivers and utilizing lean and theory of constraints concepts, processing waste will be greatly reduced to increase capacity and enable the metrology lab to double the workload or demand without an increase in personnel.

Investment to Increase Flexibility and Technology to Gain New Business

A company currently has rigid facilities with enormous product. The improvement project entails and investment in the facility and implementation of lean concepts to increase flexibility which will reduce the flow time of the product. Meanwhile, technology is changing in the market and preparations are to be made so the facility is ready to work on these new products. Financial assessments and technology capabilities were studied to detail the needs for the future to ensure the site will be the Center of Excellence for the industry.

Strategy and Implementation for Capacity and Capability Increase

Growth in the market has increased 45% over the past four years and projections anticipate tremendous potential growth in the next 3-5 years due to an increase in outsourcing. The project entails performing a Market Opportunity Analysis followed by a plan to meet the business projections. The plan involves operational design and implementation, outsourcing strategies, human resource issues such as recruiting and training a skilled workforce, and customer service perspectives.

Value Stream Mapping Initiative to Increase Capacity

The current problem at the facility is overtime due to process issues. The goal of the project is to map the entire site’s value stream to understand where the issues are. From there a future state map will be created to identify areas to tackle with continuous improvement ideas. The improvement efforts are to reduce overtime while increasing capacity for future work.

Human Resources Issues with Lean Implementation

As the company has implemented lean concepts, they have realized that their measures and how the employees work are not conducive to the lean environment. Therefore, the project will submit a strategy to develop the workforce such as realignment of job classifications, cross training, job design, and recognition. Management issues include team incentives such as pay for performance, performance appraisals, organizational structure, promotion eligibility, and an employee feedback process.

Facility Utilization

Current market conditions are forcing a multi-plant company to reduce costs significantly. While Lean has been used to increase flexibility and reduce the direct manufacturing costs, more drastic measures are necessary. Significant reductions to overhead and other in-direct costs must be achieved. To aid the effort, resources have been pulled from a sister facility to reduce the costs and decrease the transportation of the units. This has left the sister facility with less production and sales as well as a declining profit margin. The project will study the feasibility of divesting the company of this facility and include a detailed review of the financial impact as well as the effects on customers and employees.

Transformation to Lean Metrics

Research will be performed to understand the current metrics and how they should be changed to support the lean initiative. Once the metrics are determined, analysis will be performed regarding what data needs collecting, how to collect the information, and who is responsible for the information. The project will collaborate the efforts of management and the information technology department.

Introduction of New Products

In the past, the company has had a great relationship with its customer. The customer could always rely on quality products on time. Due to this relationship, the company has increased its sales tremendously and is having problems shipping on time. They are now losing sales to the competitor. The project will create a new program for new parts introduction. This program will identify the relationships between the various departments: Marketing, Engineering, Purchasing, Finance, Production Control and Manufacturing and realign job responsibilities to meet the goals of this project.

Human Element of Change

Typically, the company has usually dealt with change by "throwing technology at it." They did not pay attention whether they were putting the right people in the right situation. The project will develop an assessment to understand employee personality type, willingness to change, and appropriate application of training. The goal is to greatly enhance the chance of success in implementing new initiatives by properly integrating the correct people into the situation.