Chihuahua ramps up harness production for the Boeing 737 MAX
The Boeing 737NG and Safran Electrical & Power’s plant in Chihuahua go back a long way. Their collaboration started in 2002 and reached cruising speed in 2015.
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Since then it has hit a few patches of turbulence. Following software problems on the MAX and then the Covid pandemic, the program got back on track in 2021 and the recovery is picking up speed in 2022. The staff in Chihuahua planned ahead for the recovery and took the steps needed to tackle the increased workload.
Fluctuating production rates
“It wasn’t only the Covid crisis that slowed down our production rate here in Chihuahua, it was also the problem with the plane’s MCAS system,” explains Mario Huerta, head of the Boeing 737 MAX program at the Chihuahua site. After the Boeing 737 MAX had reached a monthly production rate of 55 in 2018 and 2019, wiring harness production collapsed in early 2020 when airplane production was suspended in January.
Production started up again in 2021, increasing from 2 to 25 planes/month during the year. “Following this ramp-up in the second half of 2021, we had to plan ahead for the expected monthly rate increase from 25 to 40 in 2022,” adds Mario.
Anticipate and respond
Safran Electrical & Power developed a sound strategy to meet these challenges. “It was an extraordinary team effort, bringing together people from across the company, including programs, human resources, procurement, engineering, production and quality,” recalls Mario. “Our teams were able to combine their knowledge, skills, experience and ideas to craft a very effective plan.”
Since production shut down in 2020, communications with the customer have been strengthened, with support from the customer program department in Seattle. Thanks to these efforts, in conjunction with teams in Chihuahua and Boeing, production was gradually ramped up to match the customer’s production rate. The production team also took a quantum leap, going from 17 to 180 employees, while introducing automated equipment to improve performance and consolidate the supply chain. “We had less than six months to achieve these goals,” says Mario. “That’s why we decided to meet the challenge by calling on Lean-Sigma projects.”
One Safran, a united force
Two ambitious projects were then conducted, both of them transformed into Black Belt certifications. The first, under the leadership of Mario Huerta, focused on operational excellence. The second, directed by Laura Colmenero, Boeing product engineering manager at Safran Electrical & Power, targeted quality. “To support these projects,” notes Laura, “for the first time in Chihuahua we launched a 360 degree One Safran analysis spanning the entire program. We evaluated 15 production cells in terms of quality performance, QRQC, manufacturing and employee-driven innovation criteria.”
All employees were encouraged to take part in a performance improvement contest, leading to the deployment of 277 “quick wins” – initiatives dubbed “If I see it, I deal with it” – primarily concerning quality and performance. This contest fostered healthy competition between teams. Successful initiatives were recognized via awards. “By effectively coordinating and executing these improvements, we were able to meet our challenges in under four months,” concludes Mario.
Mario Huerta
“Safran demonstrates a wealth of leadership, knowledge, resilience, discipline and engagement. Our people make a real difference in our company, day after day, and no matter what challenges they face, even when operating under pandemic conditions. That’s why it was critical for us to foster buy-in by all team members around a shared vision. We enabled everybody to contribute their ideas, improving processes so they could play a full-fledged role within the organization and meet our objectives as a unified team. I’m very proud to be a member of this incredible team.”
Adriana Nuñez
“The Human resources department stands out because of our commitment to teamwork, based on a shared vision, as clearly shown by this project. Each sector took an active role to ensure the successful ramp-up of the 737 MAX program. Our own challenge was to hire the best people to support the ramp-up. We needed people already familiar with the 737 program to allow us to shorten the learning curve for new hires. So we contacted former production staff who were very happy to be part of our team again, and generally very satisfied with the workplace and conditions, which made our job much easier. We can be proud of belonging to a group that’s committed to providing its employees with good working conditions, and which rose to this daunting challenge despite the restrictions due to the pandemic.”
Laura Colmenero
“The aim of my project was to improve quality so we could reduce risks for our customer. We targeted a reduction in defects per million opportunities (DPMO). To achieve this, we updated certain training courses, reviewed and enriched instructions to facilitate the work of operators and improved QRQC levels 1 and 2. We also set up active monitoring for new staff, focusing on the quality history of parts. By the end of the project, we’d reduced our DPMO by 70%!”
