Applying constraint-based theory to a complex aerospace manufacturing process

A new airplane model is quickly ramping up in production rates, and in order to achieve the organizational targets and commitments, Flow Days, Unit Hours and Cycle Times must be reduced throughout the entire supply chain. The Continuous Improvement Group (CIG) is an initiative supporting these improvements by applying the Theory of Constraints to identify improvement opportunities and lead teams to implement solutions and make the improvements. This thesis details the approach of using historical manufacturing data to identify focus areas for analysis and a methodology for analyzing a specific manufacturing process. This analysis and the improvement opportunities identified for several processes in the Final Assembly of the new plane are discussed, as well as the efforts implement solutions to these opportunities. Finally, this thesis also describes the mindsets and organizational characteristics that are necessary in order to make large efficiency improvements in a complex manufacturing process.

Department dc:contributor.department

Leaders for Global Operations Program at MIT

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2015

Author dc:creator

• Charpentier, Erik L

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Annalisa Weigel and Roy Welsch.

• Sloan School of Management.
• Mechanical Engineering.
• Leaders for Global Operations 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/1721.1/99017

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/99017