A three-pronged approach addressing capacity concerns in advanced turbine airfoil coatings

Following the tragedies of 9/11 in the United States and the ensuing down years for the aerospace industry, there are now signs of a comeback. This increase in demand is causing stress on the operations of many aerospace companies, who reduced operations and cut costs during the slowdown. This thesis proposes a three-pronged approach to undertake when looking to increase the capacity of an operation. The first step is to start changing the mindset on the shop floor to value all production pieces. The second step is to utilize all the analytical tools (such as Statistical Process Control) available to reduce set-up time and improve the targeted improvement activities of the operation. The third step is to properly evaluate the costs of purchasing new equipment and comparing that with potential alternative technologies. The proper utilization of these steps requires a thorough understanding of the organization's culture and how these change initiatives impact the relevant stakeholders. Without this organizational understanding, the chance of successfully meeting the increased customer demand is reduced. A case study was performed using this methodology at the Turbine Module Center at Pratt and Whitney.

Department dc:contributor.department

Leaders for Manufacturing Program at MIT

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Awbrey, Bret R. (Bret Robert)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld and Daniel E. Whitney.

• Sloan School of Management.
• Engineering Systems Division.
• Leaders for Manufacturing Program.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/37219

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/37219