A standard step towards innovation

For all those companies that believe adopting standards is simply about having a certificate placed on the wall, think again. As well as freeing up engineers to design innovative products, standards can also help cut costs from your bottom line. Dean Palmer reports For most manufacturing companies, managing their own business and their supply chains is becoming increasingly more sophisticated. Generally now referred to as ‘supply chain management’ initiatives, the process begins with the supply of raw materials and proceeds through design, manufacturing, warehousing, distribution, logistics and retailing. It’s all encompassing, but the objective is to minimise waste – and therefore cost – in the supply chain while maximising the value added by each of the participants or processes involved. The important point here is that firms no longer operate in isolation from one another. The idea is that if companies and their suppliers can find ways of sharing information about plans for new product launches, bill of material information, sales and forecasts then it should be possible to work together far more efficiently and effectively. A classic example is the car industry and its goal to produce the ‘five-day car’. Auto manufacturers are trying to find ways of enabling customers to walk into a dealership and specify exactly the type of car they require, then receive the finished goods within one week. It’s all about orders being triggered by the customer rather than overloading the supply chain with safety stocks of vehicles that the manufacturer thinks the market wants, but in reality don’t quite match the individual’s exact needs. But whichever manufacturing industry comes under the microscope, one thing is holding back real progress on supply chain initiatives – and that is standards. In other words, suppliers, OEMs and their distributors, all talking the same language. And one key area where companies can improve supply chain efficiency is in product design and, more specifically, the transfer of this information between supplier and OEM. 18 months ago, the British Standards Institute (BSI) introduced a new standard, BS8888 (see box out 1). It’s an umbrella standard aimed at design engineers, quality engineers and production managers. Phil Childs, chairman of TDW4, the BSI’s technical drawing standard commented: “The advent of NC and computer aided engineering means that companies can now measure things more accurately. Originally, these measurements were left to the discretion of the inspection department. Drawings were ambiguous. Plus the movement towards outsourcing means the guy making the product on the shop floor can no longer nip upstairs and talk to Harry in the drawing office about surface finish requirements. The designer may well be over the other side of the world today.” He explained that BS8888 is a ‘route map’ directing engineers towards the relevant ISO standards (there are 114 separate standards referred to in BS8888) and will actually save companies time - which is crucial if industry is to tackle its supply chain issues - and the standard is cheaper to buy than if companies were to purchase all the ISO standards separately. So it’s certainly worth considering. In reality though, most manufacturing firms do use standards, but adapted to their own organisation. Kim Spence is head of quality and improvement at aerospace engine manufacturer Rolls Royce, based in Derby. The company has seen bottom line savings from using product (or component) definitions and standards. “As the second largest aerospace company in the world, when it comes to standards adoption, we’re in a fairly unique position,” he says. “We’ve tended to use ISO as a benchmark for developing our own standards. We basically put our own spin on it. For example, we follow the intent of BS8888 but in practice we use our own version of it.” With 3,500 engineers and designers throughout Europe and 20 separate sites in the UK alone, Spence says that implementing ISO and BS standards across the whole group would be too costly and require too much effort. Recently, he’s been responsible for reviewing the BS8888 technical drawing standard. “I looked at the standard, compared it to what we’ve been doing for years, and where there were differences, then either revised our own standard to match it or omitted the change if I felt we were deviating for the sake of it. We have our own idiosyncrasies here that we want to keep for our own internal benefit.” He gave an example. “Take for instance cross-hatching on technical drawings. We don’t put these on our section drawings unless it’s absolutely necessary. Whereas BS8888 says you should only omit these if they are likely to be confusing to the eye… It’s minor differences like that really.” Spence is also currently involved in a company-wide UK project, based around Rolls Royce’s use of product data management (PDM) software - Metaphase from EDS - and how his design engineers can look for ways of reducing the number of different parts they use in engine designs, particularly fasteners. He explained: “The whole thing is being pushed through AECMA [see box out 2], which creates and maintains standards for all aerospace common components. We use it to underpin Metaphase so that when designers come to develop new assemblies, they are encouraged to adopt existing Rolls Royce-designed parts rather than designing from scratch and re-inventing the wheel each time. “Fewer parts on the engine means we can reduce our supplier base significantly. By ensuring our designers use existing parts rather than designing new ones, we expect to save at least £4,200 per component per year between the Derby and Bristol sites alone,” he added. Consider that a Rolls Royce engine consists of many thousands of components and it’s easy to see how significant the cost savings will be, particularly when the project rolls out to the whole group. So adopting standards really can help you shave costs from the business. Another large user of standards is the Ministry of Defence (MOD). Philip Wells, head of standardisation policy at the MOD, had an interesting point: “We use many standards, but industry and SMEs have to do more and start proposing their own standards to larger OEMs. Even if a standard is in common use, we might be asking a supplier for a gold-plated component in our specification, when actually silver-plating will do the job just as well. It’s up to suppliers to help drive their standards onto us.” But he also pointed out that, although standards do generally open doors to new global markets for suppliers when tendering for work, “You have to be careful that setting too many standards doesn’t stifle innovation in that industry.” Wells cited the following benefits of firms adopting standards: “They promote improvements in product quality; economies in manufacture and variety control; they promote collaboration and international trade by removing the barriers to competition; using published standards for the selection of equipment and components within a project can free up resources to focus on the more novel or innovative aspects; and standards can also promote innovation when written in a way that describe requirements in terms of performance rather than design or descriptive characteristics.” So for those cynical people who think that implementing standards is all about paying to have a nice certificate placed on the wall, think again. Rolls Royce’s success is proof that introducing standards can actually result in bottom line savings as well as driving innovation. BS 8888:2000 Technical Product Documentation (TPD) is an ‘umbrella’ standard for defining, specifying and graphically representing products. It’s aimed primarily at engineers, designers, measurement and inspection engineers, production managers and quality managers. The requirements of the new standard cross-refer to 114 separate International and European standards covering aspects such as engineering flow diagrams, lettering, tolerancing, geometric product specifications, handling of computer-based information and metrology. The standard now includes new content addressing the urgent global need for standards related to 3D modelling and the need for document security. AECMA (the European Association of Aerospace Industries) represents the European aerospace industry in all matters of common interest on the level of aircraft/ systems, engines, equipment and components. Its objective is to enhance the competitive development of the whole sector. It’s also currently contributing to the creation of a common European aerospace operations framework by developing standards for products, quality systems and product support.