Please proofread the topic and edit, as necessary.

Part 1: Proposal of Topic

Select and describe a topic for your final project by identifying an organization and a process within the organization with which you are familiar. For example, you might choose a company which manufactures a product and a particular process within the company. Or, as another example, you might choose a hospital and a particular unit (ex. Emergency Room) within the hospital. The possibilities are many. The important thing is that you have some familiarity with the organization and the process you will be studying.

As part of your proposal describe the organization and the process. Give a brief explanation of why you chose what you did and why you think an SPC project would be of value.

Topic propose.

The Emerging challenges of Boeing's AH-64A Helicopter quality control processes in design and manufacturing faces.

My proposed project topic is in line with my career fieldwork, as a final assemble manufacturing technician at the Boeing Company, Mesa AZ State. The topic bears to the challenges that the company faces each year on regular basis with its customer quality requirements and expectations unable to satisfy the customer, as a result, the customer stops production operation, stopped use of the products, and purchases and began to evaluate the entire processes and specifications within the organization. The act of not fulling efficiency in quality processes restrained financially the company growth in some past years.

Introduction

The AH-64 Apache helicopter manufacturing plant in Mesa Arizona was found in between 1970 by Hughes company.

The AH-64 Apache was designed to be the army defense fighter system in the battleground to support eliminating traits and win the insurgents from attacks. The trial product design of the Apache succeeded its first face flight in 1975 and became the YAH-64 after Hughes obtained the full license for production contract by the Army in 1976. Following its resilience in the product functionality, the army made approval of the program production and named it AH-64A in the 1982 period. In 1984, both Hughes and McDonnell Douglas made a joint venture for the helicopter production in Mesa Arizona State and had a good delivery for the Army within the same year period.

The Apache AH-64A Helicopter manufacturing processes plant at Mesa AZ branch had many different production plants and departmental units for supporting the production processes into a single functional product ready for testing before delivery.

The manufacturing processes plants involve the following:

1.Final assemble Shop floor mechanics: The mechanics comprise electrical, mechanical, hydraulic, structural, power plant mechanics & composite mechanics.

The key functional task in this role of staffing is to perform install/inspection/testing/FOD findings by following the engineering technical document and processes outline to perform the job in assembling variable components and carrying out an inspection alongside upon job completion also DCMA Mandatory Inspection.

When an inspection is performed and no defects or discrepancies exist then quality is fully achieved but on the other upon inspection perform with defects findings obtain, an action plan is taken by generating a nonconformance report to comply with all necessary quality standards deem acceptable to the contractual agreement by the customer.

2. The Engineering support Department.

The role of this department is broader as it constitutes different engineering departments, such as design, liaison, manufacturing engineering, quality control department, mechanical/electrical, etc.

3. The Parts Control department.

The function of the parts control (PC) department provides an inventory account of all parts upon vendor/supplier delivery point. PC then provides and delivers the parts on the manufacturing shop floor for those involved in building the aircraft.

4. Tooling and calibration department.

Calibration definition: the procedure used for determining the accuracy of a measuring device and replacing or simply paring the device if it does not meet a certain predetermined value of accuracy.

Therefore, the above department role is responsible for the functionality, and safe operation of the shop floor tools calibration based on a recurring yearly basis whenever the due date reaches or elapses following excessive load(pressure or energy) and environmental conditions that could affect the tool performance for accuracy. Toolings include (Torques, stripped and crimp tools, air swagging tools, etc).

5. Procurement/supplier/vendors.

Here cross-functional parties perform parts sorting or purchasing across the globe to aid in the manufacturing process. They solely purchase components base on given technical specifications by engineering design teams/engineering.

Parts quality can be fully be determined by such departments unless they expect subject mechanics to validate its quality state by physical inspection and by functionality test performed.

6.The Final Delivery Department

The function of the delivery department carries out two distinctive roles involving full services, testing, and final inspections to ensure the functionality of the engineering design specifications are met before delivery to the customer without any discrepancies found that compromise quality, or airworthiness of operation.

The Training department: The objective of this department is to foresee and ensure that newly employed employees are trained and deem competent with the required skills and knowledge set to performing TQM

Repetitive defects can be caused by the following categories of areas for affecting quality processes in the AH64A production:

1. Shop floor mechanics may either not competently be adhering to the engineering technical processes, drawings, or specification standards.

2. Deficiency of Parts or components brought by vendors/suppliers

3. Errors made by design engineering or engineering support team.

4. The use of outdated materials e.g. sealants expired, equipment (A/C compressors, Fluid hydraulic machines, etc.), and other calibrated tools.

5. Un-containment of Foreign objects debris (FOD) on the ship and missing tools found on the product (Aircraft).

6.The option for Used parts that do not properly service and are stored with the correct type of preservative materials to protect the life of the part functionality.

The listed processes outlined above and other common areas are commonly associated with recurring defects causing quality improvement a high concern to management and the customer most especially.

I choose this quality concern top because of the numerous processes of areas that SPC project would most certainly be of value for data collection.

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Part 2: Set SPC Objectives

Identify at least three objectives that you expect to achieve by implementing the SPC process. Since these, ultimately, would be used to measure the success of the project if it was actually implemented, they should be as specific as practical. For example, rather than having an objective of reducing the material waste from a process, it would be better to have an objective of reducing the waste from process by, perhaps, five percent. As another example, it would be better to have an objective of reducing customer complaints by 10% rather than just saying to improve customer service. Submit to your mentor for grading.

Please complete step 4 of "The Planning Phase for implementing SPC" (see p. 316).

Propose Objectives of the SPC.

The Apache Helicopter program developed by the Boeing company is fully considered as the world's premier attack helicopter and had contributed a tremendous impact to supporting the US Army men and women on the battleground as the need be to repel and attack insurgents on battle red zone globally.

There are many challenges exposed to the processes, as Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy asserted in an interview "absolutely concerning," & "We had to go back and investigate the supply chain and find all the defective parts" and uncovered "a challenge with the quality testing in the facility,"Tony Capaccio,(Herald Net, October 2020) or systems test,

"we discovered improper record-keeping related to ourApache program, and as asserted by McCarthy that the Apaches faces challenges for the rotor system, transmission and 30mm gun. The Boeing Apache program due to its size of operation for the business organization. These challenges happened in 2018 because poor-quality compliances if seriously considered becomes preventable to save lives of those in uniform.

When an issue relating to compliance in quality assurance to the customer, the management, or the Boeing company rather than taking full responsibilities for their actions or failures to meeting air wealthiness in processes diverge to shifting the blame on the mechanic's not competently adhering to quality standards, and not fully analyzing the effects of scopes in many areas of lapses causing the efficiency in the processes.

The principal objective for the use of SPC is to provide support in newer strategies for training standards from the obsolete type established by management which impedes the enhancement of better quality processes for most mechanics, parts vendors, Parts control (PC), and stores, for innovating newer cutting-edge training principles and procedures for mechanics and other departments will significantly lead toward reducing defects of parts or process defects and rework by 20% to ensure that the training provided has a direct correlation on what mechanics do on the shop-floor including other departmental areas. When having the underlying processes learned ultimately coincide with technical requirement become vital to various kinds of defects and rework.

The need for employee inclusion starting from the support engineering team to work actively long with the shop-mechanics in the design and processes to help to reduce the large margin of defects and reworks, but unfortunately, there is a huge gap between the two departments, where support engineering maintains that no need for improvement in the design and processes in taking the views of mechanics left under the carpet. The condition for defects and rework becomes a normal metaphysical concept of both the past and future in the manufacturing processes.

Another objective arena in this SPC is to focus on implementing a FOD preventive control strategy to help reduce or eliminate repetitive FOD findings by the customer at a rate of 10%. when we can focus on employee engagement and create incentive packages available for employee effectiveness to reduce FOD findings in their due diligence to quality standards, this can lead to achievingzeroFOD on the product. The complexity of the processes and the large size of the organization set fore can a huge impact on quality improvement toward prevention due to employee exposure on pressure or demands to achieve task completion results FOD left behind. FOD finding reports by the customer had been under the customer scanner for over a decade which requires proactive action and policy to cure the quality defects and would enable the organization to regain its reputation back from the customer.

The final objective is driven from the deficiency in labor rate on the shop floor to performing the processes of a task as management scrutinize jobs hours and continually cutting down hours for maximum profit gains while employing so many support staffing within the business organization and with the expectation to have efficient product and services without defects or zero defects for the customer. Increasing 5% of the shop floor labor rate would and increasing the processes hours for performing a task would lead to a gain in production efficiency. This strategy approach by management could either compromises the integrality of quality assurances being associated with having very few employees performing shop floor tasks with the expectation to achieve great quality can always be an unfortunate situation to meet customers' satisfaction for quality assurance or compliances.

The Boeing top management prefer to spend millions of dollars on programs or areas that are not relevant to supporting processes and systems aid for improving quality assurances and instead provides a very scanty budget for labor headcount (rate) on building the product with an unrealistic expectation to achieve an unachievable quality goal for the customer.

These will be used for measuring, recording, analyzing, and controlling the Process Variabilityfor quality improvement.

Reference

Tony Capaccio / Bloomberg (October 2020). Boeing'sArizona chopper plant under scrutiny by the Army team.

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