Development of an Information System with Standardized Process and Database

Development of an Information System with Standardized Process and Database

An interim project proposal

Submitted to

Ametek HSA,Inc

Aerospace and Defense Division

7841 N.W. 56th Street l

Miami, FL 33166

Contact:Mr. Leonardo Jimenez

By

Project Team 9

Maria Andrea Rodriguez (Project Manager)

Carol Relayze

Fiorella Silva

In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the course ESI 4452 Engineering Project Management and Senior Design (Part I)

Industrial & Systems Engineering Department

Florida International University

December 7, 2009

Executive Summary

The objective of this project is a general design of an information system that will be used to standardize the current process, to track incoming orders, and provide visibility to management. The team will also provide a low-fidelity prototype of the web-based system as an initial step to achieve management’s ultimate goal of implementing a fully functional version.

Through the processes followed to achieve the objective stated above, the team will standardize the overall design procedure of repairs, minimize the waste of resources, and at the same time provide visibility to management in every status of the process. The team will analyze the current state of the system; immediately after, the proposed standardized process flow chart will be presented. During the remaining stages of the project, the team will focus on collecting data relevant to the design of the tracking system and initiate its development. Towards the completion of the allocated time frame, a set of recommendations and improvements will be delivered to the customer.

By committing to this project, Ametek-HSA will be able to simplify the repair design process by integrating the different techniques into a unique one. The project’s cost, including labor, office equipment, transportation, communications, and required software, adds up to $9,695.00. The total cost will be absorbed by FIU. The expected delivery date of the project is on April 2010.

Table ofContents

1 Introduction......

1.1 Corporate History

1.2 Mission/Vision Statement

2. Problem background......

3. Problem Statement......

4. Scope, Constraints, Assumptions and Merit......

4.1 Scope

4.2 Assumptions

4.3 Constraints

4.4 Merit

5. General approach......

5.1 Overall Approach

5.2 Detailed description

6. Contractual aspects......

7. Schedules......

8. Resources......

9. Personnel......

9.1 Organizational chart

9.2 WBS Linear Responsibility Chart

10. Budget......

11. Evaluation methods......

11.1 System Design

11.2 Prototype

12. Potential problems......

13 Appendix......

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1 Introduction

1.1 Corporate History

High Standard Aviation (HSA) is a repair company acquired by Ametek on March 2009. HSA focuses mostly on electrical, hydraulic, pneumatic, and electromechanical repairs for the aerospace industry.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued the "VGHR 393L" certificate to High Standard Aviation on November 26th, 1991, which allows HSA to perform aerospace repairs as long as its processes are in compliance with the specified regulations. Today High Standard Aviation is both FAA and EASA approved; ISO 9001:2000 certified and proud carriers of a "Tag" that has earned them the highest opinion throughout the industry.

HSA's reputation as the"IDG Specialist" is a consequence of the non-compromising commitment to quality and reliability. Today, the repair and overhaul capability includes IDG's (Integrated Drive Generators), CSD's (Constant Speed Drives), Generators, Starters, Fans, and Hydraulics (hydraulic pumps, actuators, valves, modules...) on all Commercial Aircraft and some regional jets.

All this work is performed in a 50,000sq-ft, air-conditioned, "state of the art" facility that was specifically designed for the purpose of providing the best possible quality and highest reliability to our customer base. HSA is located at 7841 NW 56th Street in Miami, Florida. The two story building is completely housed in a CBS construction warehouse, equipped with offices, stockrooms, 7 different shop areas, meeting rooms, and a lunch room. It is protected 24/7 by a fire and burglar alarm system, exceeding all requirements in accordance with FAR 145.103.

High Standard Aviation has grown significantly since the early years and today it is responsible for the employment of about 80 of the most highly qualified technicians, professionals, and engineers.[1]

1.2 Mission/Vision Statement

The company’s Mission/Vision is “Customers in the aviation industry expect a highly reliable product with a reasonable Turn Around Time at a fair price. Our ultimate goal is to be the best repair station in the world. To achieve that goal we have and will continue to focus on two key elements, our fundamental principles: Reliable Products & Outstanding Service.” [2]

2. Problem background

HSA is one of the leading repair companies for the aerospace industry and its reputation, as well as the number of customers, has grown throughout the years.Quality service has always been a priority; however, some areas of the overall process are not as optimal as desired.At the end of the day, this generates extra work and some disorganization within the facility.

Currently, the HSA engineering department is formed by 4 engineers and an assistant engineer in charge of following and developing the different repairs. The first “pullback” identified is that the process of developing new repairs is not standardized. Each person has its own way and order of doing the repair; this leads to problems whenever an engineer needs to be replaced or covered for. The lack of consistency and standardization of the process ultimately results in a decrease of the overall levels of productivity.

Other conflicting situations, such as documents repetition and extra paper work, arise from the issue mentioned above. Records of each repair must be kept for at least two years as stipulated by the FAA in case audits are performed. Some of these files are kept in paper while others are in digital format. Since no standard plan is followed, the staff is often unaware of the location of the required documentation.

The final issue identified is that management has no visibility of the current work in progress. At the moment, the department has no tracking system to follow the status of each order. Thus, it is very hard for the supervisor of the facility to keep the corporate office and clients up to date regarding the advancement of specific orders.

3. Problem Statement

The company wishes to standardize the repair process in order to keep consistency between what is done by everyone in the engineering department, to reduce the paper work volume, and to facilitate the communication and flow of all the orders. Also, develop an information system that will allow management to visualize the current status of each order: in progress,completed or pending any other input.

The goal of this project is a fully functional web-based information system. However, due to time constraints the team would not be able to follow through the entire implementation process until the goal is reached.

The objective is to provide a system design and prototype of a web-based information system for airplanes parts operations at HSA.

The project will lead to the following deliverables:

-System design

• It will detail the standardizedprocess flow; it will also include the information system specification, requirements, functionality, and user interface design. It will specify the overall needs for the system development and the specific format in which it will be presented.

-Prototype

• Low fidelityprototype with limited functionality. The limitations regarding the prototype will be address further along the project since these are directly related to time constraints.

4. Scope, Constraints, Assumptions and Merit

4.1 Scope

The scope of work will be limited to the Engineering Department of the facility. Taking into account the purpose of the objective as well as the time line to get it done, the analysis will be centered in the general work order handling procedures and the development of a status-tracking tool for management in the department previously mentioned.The areas that can be impacted due to any modifications made in the Engineering department are: electrical, hydraulic, pneumatic, and electromechanical. Nevertheless, as it has been mentioned before, the area of study is the Engineering Department.

4.2 Assumptions

No assumptions are necessary at this point. If during the project we see the need to include any, it will appear in the next deliverable.

4.3 Constraints

• The Standard Process developed must be in compliance with all the requirements stipulated by the FAA, OSHA, EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), DOT (Department of Transportation), ISO 9001: 2000, and EASA (European Aviation Safety Agency).The requirements have a direct influence since the lack of compliance leads to possible penalties.
• Aircrafts on Ground (AOGs) cannot be held up;they have the highest priority. The priorities immediately postpone the ongoing work orders.
• The implementation of the proposed solution cannot interfere with the production time.
• The current formats used for Part number, part type, component maintenance manual (CMM), and air transport association (ATA) must not be modified. These formats identify the part and process regarding the work orders.
• The team can only visit the facility on Thursday mornings and/or Friday after 10:30am. Nevertheless, the team must notify the company about the date and time of visit in advance; the Project Manager is supposed to do this notificationevery Wednesday.

4.4 Merit

The company is advised to engage in the proposed project because the standardization of the repair process will result in a 40 %reduction of the response time. At the same time, it will minimize physical waste (paper wise) in approximately 20%. Moreover, the new tracking methodology and process facilitation will increase the satisfaction of the workers creating therefore a more timely meeting of management and clients’ expectations.By standardizing the process, the company will be able to design new repair methods in a shorter amount of time. The reports provided by the information system will provide management with the necessary data to identify bottleneck situation, resources utilization, among other things that would lead to improvement opportunities.

5. General approach

5.1 Overall Approach

In order to achieve the objectives stated above, the team will use anengineering design process approach. Initially, the focus will be on the analysis of the current process and will then move into the gathering of the data needed to develop the specifications required for the Information System that is to be implemented.

To successfully complete the project, and to obtain a deeper insight of the overall performance, a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) was created. Through this methodology, the identification of tasks, subtasks, and activities becomes much easier and gives the team better visibility and perception of improvement opportunities.

The WBS will also give the team an idea of the number of resources and labor hours that will be needed to carry on the project and effectuate implementations.

The entire project is divided in 5 general phases to facilitate progress traceability and timely submittal of deliverables. The phases are: “Understanding As-Is system”, “Standardization Process”, “Data Collection for Information System”, “Development of Information System”, and “Recommendations”.

5.2 Detailed description

Initially, the team will gather information regarding the as-is state of the process. To gain some company insight, the team will meet with the engineering staff to collect general information about the company, go through company manuals to familiarize with the regulations stipulated by regulatory companies, and review the company safety policies to ensure that all requirements and specifications are met.

To understand the repair process, the team will take different walks through the company to observe the actual process, interview each engineer to obtain information about their specific way of performing the process, and develop a flow chart of each of those procedures. Also, a meeting with chief inspector will be scheduled to obtain validation of each of the individual processes.

Next, the standardization of the process will be done. All the information collected will be reviewed (flow charts), and a final standard process will be created that includes all the stages and facilitates the flow. A meeting with management needs to be scheduled as well to obtain validation and approval from the chief inspector.

After the process has been standardized, the team will start collecting data on the repair process, laborand materials used to populate the database that will be used for the tracking system. Costs will be estimated and the results will be presented to the chief inspector. A document will be created where all the specifications, requirements, functionality, user interface, and other aspects of the information system will be defined and described to management.

Once all the information is gathered and the corresponding guidelines are stipulated, the team will create a low fidelity prototype with limited functionality to give an overall idea of how the system will work.

At the end of the project, the team will provide management with a set of suggested recommendations. Through brainstorming the team will meet to suggest and proposed any further improvements opportunities identified and cost analysis will be developed to provide an economic analysis showing the benefits of implementing the proposed recommendations.

The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) presented below is a graphical representation of the steps and divisions mentioned in the general approach section.

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Figure 1: WBS

Figure 2: WBS

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6. Contractual aspects

The FIU team was asked to sign a confidentiality agreement given by the company, in which the team commits to not share any information obtained for this project. Moreover, the final deliverable must be submitted and deleted from all the members’ computers according to this agreement. Nevertheless, up to this point the agreement has not been sign since the company is looking to waive the legal paper work.

7. Schedules

The deliverables of the project will be submitted in accordance to the general schedule presented below. If any changes are made, Ametek-HSA will be informed in advanced to reschedule as necessary.

Table 2: Schedule

All the dates used in the scheduling are rough estimates. When actual dates are confirmed the necessary modifications will be made.

At this point, the estimated date of project completion is March 12th, 2010; however, the distribution of the time dedicated to the project is influenced by some external aspects such as company’s and management schedule, and the team’s class schedule.The biggest percentage of the approximated time will be spent in recognizing and understanding the current process, learning regulations, and materials and labor needs. This initial state will also include the process standardization and the development of the requirements and specifications for the information system to be built afterwards.

The Gant Chart provided below is a graphical representation of the schedule including the two deliverables: System Design and Prototype with their corresponding tasks and milestones.

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Figure 4: Gant Chart

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8. Resources

Several specific resources are required to achieve the goals and objects stated previously. Some equipments necessaries for this project are computer/laptops, internet access, printers, and different software’s. If new task or changes occur, additional resources may be required. The team will be provided with these resources by either FIU or Ametek-HSA.

Table 3: Resources

9. Personnel

Based on the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), an analysis and description of the activities assign to each person are shown below. If any modification is to be done, the project manager will inform Ametek-HSA and anyone who is directly influences by such variation.

Personnel / Skills / Description
Project Manager / Leadership, Communication, Discipline, Credibility, managerial skills, ability to handle stress and ethics / Supervise the overall progress of the project, develop work schedule, estimate budget, assign responsibilities and allocate resources.
Data Collector / Time study experience, attentive, logical, focused, detailed oriented / Observe, capture and collect requires information
Web Master / Knowledge in programming languages, web development experience, creativity / Design and maintain the project website, mayor input in the tracking system interface
Microsoft Visio Modeler / Knowledge in Vision / Develop As-Is flow charts and model implementation
Analyst / Organized, Statistical Experience, Microsoft proficient and logical / Help in the collection of data, analyze it and derive conclusions
Editor / Excellent writing skills, experiences developing written reports, and editing / Create written reports of project progress
Operational Valuator / Experience and expertise / Validate data collected by project team
Technical Valuator / Experience and expertise in the creation of Information Systems / Validate data collected by project team

Table 4: Personnel

9.1 Organizational chart

In this section, a Project Organizational Chart is presented. This chart will provide hierarchical information on the project team and the relations between all parties involved.

The team is formed by 3 members of the Industrial and Systems Engineering from FIU who will be in charge of the full project development and initial implementation of the approved recommendations. The functions performed by the team members are Data Collector, Web Master, Microsoft Visio modeler, Analyst, and Editor. The FIU group reports to the Project Manager who will report to both the FIU Project advisor and the ultimate Client, in this case Ametek-HSA.