Where should A&D manufacturing companies focus their Model-Based Enterprise (MBE) efforts?
To achieve MBE goals, manufacturers must track parts and processes from design engineering through manufacturing to the sustainment of the finished product in the field. The challenge is not transferring information among the business, design, and manufacturing systems; it is the complexity of creating and managing the digital thread across a global supply chain, through multiple manufacturing environments, and over decades of field maintenance. This eBook explains what Model-Based Process Authoring is, why it is critically important, how it functions within an MBE environment, and the technology required to support it.
Please enjoy a summary of our research below.* For the full research, visit our sponsor iBase-t.
Table of Contents
- MBE Facts and Benefits
- Common Misconceptions about MBE
- Process Authoring in an MBE Environment
- Keys to Successful Adoption
- People: The Impact on the Organization
- Modifying How People Work
- Reducing Non-Value-Added Tasks
- MBE Runs on Enterprise Data Management
- Technology: MBE Requires Purpose-Built Technology
- Recommendations
- Acknowledgments
MBE Facts and Benefits
MBE: From Parts to Products
MBE is most mature at the single-component part level, where it largely functions as an extension of traditional CAD/CAM technology. Extending MBE to complex, multi-component assemblies is the more challenging frontier and requires a reliable digital thread, process flexibility to meet the demands of a regulated, complex manufacturing environment, and synchronization with the supply chain.
The MBE Opportunity
Companies that have not begun their MBE journey are wasting resources. Their most constrained resources (people) are re-entering data from ERP and PLM systems into their shop-floor execution systems. Even at the basic level of system connectivity (for example, improving the engineering change management process), MBE can provide:
- Reduced costs and manpower requirements across the value chain
- Reduction in quality issues and rework costs related to changes that haven’t been propagated
- Error-proofing by reducing the number of times a design is translated into lower-fidelity illustrations
Model-Based Process Authoring in MBE
Adopting MBE in complex assembly requires purpose-built tools that ensure manufacturing engineers and frontline workers have the right information, thereby improving decision-making and competency. Model-Based Process Authoring provides direct links to key product information, critical quality characteristics, and linked Bills of Materials (BOMs) and Bills of Process (BOPs). It also serves as a platform for developing the additional manufacturing-specific details required to create a complete set of instructions for each instance of the product being manufactured. This establishes the digital thread foundation or framework for the as-designed, as-built, and eventually as-maintained conditions of the end products’ parts and assemblies.
Process Authoring in an MBE Environment
Process Authoring Supports Operations
In A&D, process authoring extends design intent and critical-to-quality features to produce interactive process documentation aligned with current manufacturing capabilities. Process authoring is a discipline focused on day-to-day or minute-by-minute operations. It must support the myriad exceptions that can arise in manufacturing, including alternative parts, processes, and equipment.
Process Authoring Spans Departments
Process Authoring requires input from several disciplines across the manufacturing enterprise. Each organization has its own areas of expertise, priorities, and resource constraints. Process instructions are dynamic, not static. They are affected by engineering change management, as changes to WIP must be considered, especially when those changes involve flight-critical components.
Process Authoring Must Handle Exceptions
Unplanned equipment downtime and sudden changes in resource availability can also affect process instructions. The same applies to any required material substitutions. In an MBE environment, the process must not only evolve in response to these ‘events’; the manufacturing execution system must maintain the digital thread throughout these modifications without interruption.
Recommendations
Keep People at the Forefront
Start by streamlining tasks for frontline workers, enabling them to make more informed decisions and spend most of their time building products. Eliminate data re-entry, swivel-chair processes, and other manual, non-value-added tasks. For example, tracking critical-to-quality data, UUIDs, QPIDs, and similar identifiers should be a seamless part of the process, not an additional set of clerical tasks on top of the already complex requirements for assembling a product.
Simplify Processes
Next, focus on process improvement to seamlessly integrate MBE into manufacturing. Remove ‘but we’ve always done it this way’ from your vocabulary. Use the resources and skills you already have to define continuous improvement projects that advance MBE goals and ensure that process improvements serve the workforce, not the technology.
Adopt a Federated Data Architecture
No single system can cover the enterprise, supply chain, and lifecycle of complex A&D products. What happens at the edges, where systems communicate and people collaborate, is critical. Focus not only on APIs and integration but also on data ontology and the critical characteristics essential to the digital thread. Eliminate data waste and errors caused by people re-entering data across systems.
Employ a data model that fully instantiates parts, subassemblies, products, and related shop orders to curate and manage the critical data elements of MBE. This data model will enable end-to-end management of the end product from design through build to sustainment.
Adopt a Built-for-Purpose Technology
Make technology decisions that support people, processes, and data requirements across the enterprise. Use purpose-built tools throughout the value chain and integrate them through a federated data architecture. Link these tools to key data in the digital thread, including CAD ID and characteristic ID, which are defined for the model definition, the bill of characteristics, the bill of process, and the bill of material. This will provide a way to pass information to an execution tool that can maintain continuity.
*This summary is an abbreviated version of the ebook and does not contain the full content. For the full research, please visit our sponsor, iBase-t.
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