Conchita Azcuénaga – Deputy to the Chief Operating Officer of Aernnova Group
16 February 2023
During the first meeting we focused on improvement plans to offset the impact of cost inflation.
This scenario has been incorporated into our cost structures, so on this occasion we sought to go deeper into them, detecting non-value-added operations in manufacturing processes and operational tasks.
With the incorporation of the teams from Évora, hosts of the meeting, and Hamble, there were 15 plants that shared problems, solutions and methodologies for the detection of non-value added operations and the opportunities, in terms of greater capacity, that they represent in those plants with strong expected growth.
In addition, the Group’s Supply Chain Department participated, whose function is key in plant operations, due to the difficulties that the supply chain continues to create today, with great impact on production. Its head shared the risk analysis methodology and the situation of the most penalising suppliers, as well as the organisational model and follow-up meetings with the plants.
All the plants took stock of their 2022 objectives in their individual presentations and identified the top ten key actions in their plans for 2023.
In particular, the heads of Évora, Aernnova Aeroestructuras Álava and Intec-Air, made their respective presentations to the entire forum, emphasising:
Aernnova Évora: incorporated into the Group 10 months ago with the challenge of doubling its production in 2023, a task in which a large group of people from other plants (Aernnova Aeroestructuras Álava, Aernnova Andalucía, etc.) is already supporting both in production tasks and in the resolution of technical process problems.
Aernnova Aerostructures Álava: after the start-up of the automated assembly Tackt line of the A220 CWB, the plant faces the challenge of taking it to its maximum rate, ramp up limited by the availability of materials. The start-up of other A220 and Cockpit projects puts it in the focus of our main customer Airbus.
Intec-Air: along with the improvements in each of the production processes, the plant is already immersed in the re-engineering of key processes, with high production volumes, to avoid manual rework and reprocessing in 2023.
The topics discussed by groups during the rest of the day, which were brought together at the end of the day, were:
G1: Customer performance: OTD-OTQ.
G2: Production performance: Lead time reduction, OEE, WIP…
G3: Resources & materials for capacity increase
G4: Operational Costs: Non added value operations in product &processes impacting in Gross Margin
G5: Technical issues in products & processes
Technical issues, given the wide diversity of composite, metallic and assembly processes, could not be left out of the conference. The participation of the Group’s Technical Management together with the Composites Engineering and Aerostructures Industrialisation Engineering Divisions occupied one of the working groups.
The following day we had the balance of Quality Performance 2022, presented by the Group’s Quality Management, a presentation of the work in line with energy efficiency and the strategic lines of development of our sector.
At the end of the conference, and as a final message, Ricardo Moro, COO of the Group, stressed the importance of the exchange of knowledge and experiences between the work teams of the Aernnova Group plants in the search for, identification and elimination of non-value-added operations in processes and products.
