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"It's a mother beautiful bridge, and it's gon
Saw this on www.aviationnow.com
Lean Manufacturing To Cut V-22 Cost, Bell Says
By Lisa Troshinsky
10/06/2004 08:33:37 AM
The cost of Bell Helicopter Textron's V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft will drop from its current price of about $70 million to about $50 million within the next five years because of lean manufacturing, according to the head of Osprey program partner Bell Helicopter.
The V-22 currently costs $73 million per aircraft. The Navy's target cost for the aircraft is $58 million by fiscal 2010, a Naval Air Systems Command representative told The DAILY.
The V-22 is in the early stages of production - Boeing and Bell Helicopter are producing 18 aircraft a year and likely will move into full-rate production in 2005, Bell Helicopter CEO Michael Redenbaugh said in a meeting last week with editors from The DAILY and Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine. At that time, the company will have to double the production rate, he said.
"Though Bell Helicopter is number one in vertical lift aircraft, it is fifth in revenues because of the transition time it takes to go into full-rate production," Redenbaugh said.
To date, the V-22's cycle time - the time it takes for it to move through the Bell facility near Dallas, Texas - has been reduced by 70-90 percent, and the company has reduced by 37 percent the time it takes to assemble the aircraft, Dwayne Dehaven, vice president of Textron Six Sigma with parent company Textron, told The DAILY.
The "first-time yield" - the percentage of the time the company builds an aircraft without having to redo manufacturing processes - "has been 100 percent over the last year, due to shortening manufacturing steps and linking those steps closer together to improve visibility and communication," he said. "In the past, a major V-22 component would go across several machine tools and traverse miles in my machine center. Moving all the equipment into a located cell reduces time and travel distance."
Redenbaugh said that "under previous factory alignment, it took Bell workers 180 days to make V-22 prop-rotor gearboxes, a process that included moving the component dozens of times over thousands of feet to different stations within the factory. Under the new system, gearboxes are being turned out in 45 days and make only a few moves, covering less than 1,000 feet from start to finish."
Bell also reduced the time it takes to get the paperwork on each aircraft ready for the government from 13 hours to 2.5 hours, Dehaven said.
Lean Manufacturing To Cut V-22 Cost, Bell Says
By Lisa Troshinsky
10/06/2004 08:33:37 AM
The cost of Bell Helicopter Textron's V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft will drop from its current price of about $70 million to about $50 million within the next five years because of lean manufacturing, according to the head of Osprey program partner Bell Helicopter.
The V-22 currently costs $73 million per aircraft. The Navy's target cost for the aircraft is $58 million by fiscal 2010, a Naval Air Systems Command representative told The DAILY.
The V-22 is in the early stages of production - Boeing and Bell Helicopter are producing 18 aircraft a year and likely will move into full-rate production in 2005, Bell Helicopter CEO Michael Redenbaugh said in a meeting last week with editors from The DAILY and Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine. At that time, the company will have to double the production rate, he said.
"Though Bell Helicopter is number one in vertical lift aircraft, it is fifth in revenues because of the transition time it takes to go into full-rate production," Redenbaugh said.
To date, the V-22's cycle time - the time it takes for it to move through the Bell facility near Dallas, Texas - has been reduced by 70-90 percent, and the company has reduced by 37 percent the time it takes to assemble the aircraft, Dwayne Dehaven, vice president of Textron Six Sigma with parent company Textron, told The DAILY.
The "first-time yield" - the percentage of the time the company builds an aircraft without having to redo manufacturing processes - "has been 100 percent over the last year, due to shortening manufacturing steps and linking those steps closer together to improve visibility and communication," he said. "In the past, a major V-22 component would go across several machine tools and traverse miles in my machine center. Moving all the equipment into a located cell reduces time and travel distance."
Redenbaugh said that "under previous factory alignment, it took Bell workers 180 days to make V-22 prop-rotor gearboxes, a process that included moving the component dozens of times over thousands of feet to different stations within the factory. Under the new system, gearboxes are being turned out in 45 days and make only a few moves, covering less than 1,000 feet from start to finish."
Bell also reduced the time it takes to get the paperwork on each aircraft ready for the government from 13 hours to 2.5 hours, Dehaven said.
