Shop Floor Management System Putting Striking Workers Back on Track

After nearly two months of contention, it's back to work and business as usual at Boeing. The aeronautical giant recently agreed to a four-contract with its engineer and technical workers, putting an end to an extended strike. On the heels of the new contract's approval, the Associated Press reported, "Customers and suppliers should achieve more stability in their dealings with Boeing with ratification of a four-year contract with machinists."

The new contract, which expires on September 8, 2012 "that includes a 15% pay increase pulls back from proposed changes in health benefits and sweetens retirement payments." The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) Local 751 "has been Boeing's most militant union. Its relations with Boeing are fragile at best and new members are advised to keep a strike-savings fund."

One of IAM's largest bones of contention is the issue of job outsourcing. More specifically, "The biggest outsourcing concern for the IAM relates to Boeing's shift away from vendors delivering no further than the loading dock. IAM members have traditionally tracked inventory and made shop floor deliveries. To improve [shop floor] efficiency, Boeing asked vendors to take over that entire process."

The article goes on to point out, "Machinists protest that thousands of their jobs are at stake. As a compromise, the company has agreed that vendors will deliver only to designated areas on the established production lines. Claiming victory, the union says the jobs of 2,200 facilities and maintenance personnel and 2,920 forklift drivers, shipping and other factory floor workers have been protected."

The terms of the settlement include "varying degrees of change in all three parts of the contract that deal with outsourcing - provisions for subcontractors to deliver parts and supplies to the shop floor, procedures for the union to bid for work before it is outsourced and a section on maintenance work." But to deal with the backlog of nearly 3,700 aircraft that resulted from the strike, shop floor efficiency will be more vital than ever.

In getting back up to speed, Boeing may want to avail itself to a real-time data collection system that provides job tracking and factory floor control. Some of the benefits the company can reap from shop floor management software are better scheduling, work in progress tracking, data collection, and time and attendance labor management. Additionally, a built-in Manufacturing Execution System can provide Boeing with a visual factory that is easy to see and, therefore, easy to control.

Such a shop floor management system can also make sense of all factory floor data being collected so companies like Boeing can see how effectively they're using labor time and machine resources and can identify areas for making process improvements. In addition, it can help the company work around unanticipated changes, which will be key over the next 90 days it is expected that Boeing will need to resume normal operations once machinists return to work.

Finally, a factory floor management system functions as a process improvement tool, allowing companies to create quality data capture "templates" so they can record measurements and identify nonconformance conditions.