Conchita Azcuénaga- Industrial Operations Manager
9 May 2022
With the Covid crisis behind us, the year 2022 has begun with problems in the supply of raw materials and purchasing items, skyrocketing prices of energy and gas, a statewide transport strike and a CPI breaking historical records.
A first quarter in which the war in Ukraine, in addition to the human horror it is causing, will extend this complicated economic scenario for the industry, and therefore also for Aernnova.
In this context, the Managers of the Composite, Aerostructures and Metals Plants presented the proposals they had worked on with their teams with the aim of reducing operating costs, focusing on the priority actions to be implemented during the year.
At this meeting, we were able to count on the presence of our CEO, Ricardo Chocarro, who placed us in the current context of our customers.
We could also count on the telematic attendance of Iñigo Giménez, who explained the restructuring process of the Aerometallic area.
Brek’s General Manager, Marwan Hammouri, attended these meetings in person. He explained that the North America situation, being somewhat different, allows them to see a growth horizon for which they are preparing at the new Wichita plant.
The plant managers from Mexico and Brazil – Iñigo Aldabadetrecu and Douglas Ortlibas – despite the time difference, were also able to join this meeting by videoconference. They shared their analysis and informed us about opportunities for cost reduction and maximization of added value in our processes.
The main objective of the plant teams and of the Composites, Aerostructures and Metallic Engineering areas is to achieve the improvement of the production processes, so that a product is manufactured well and at the first time. During their participation, they presented the improvement plans underway in each program and/or technology.
Felix Rodriguez – General Manager of Composites – together with Enrique Sanchez – Production Engineering Manager of the Composites area, detailed the systematic analysis of operations that do not add value to our products. Emphasizing the identification, blocking, repair and validation of non-conforming products, real “cost drain”.
The repair of non-quality requires time and resources. It involves additional costs of 2 million euros per year for our plants.
As a result, the focus should be on opportunities for improvement in the management of internal nonconformities, the dedication of the support areas in their management, the control of repair times and costs, duplicate inspections and compliance with self-monitoring and inspection levels in the plant.
These actions will make it possible to detect problems in the initial stages of manufacturing and thus avoid contributing additional value to the nonconforming product.
Likewise, José Ignacio Ceballos – responsible for the Group’s Supply Chain – warned about the duration of the current scenario of continuous risk of impact due to lack of materials and parts. This situation currently requires very close daily monitoring of all plants to avoid high cost overruns due to urgent manufacturing and transport.
This meeting, with a common objective of Improvement and Optimization, allowed us to share the activities, initiatives, problems and ideas all companies of Group Aernnova, which in many cases are suppliers to each other.
