Manufacturing Executive - March/April 2009 - (Page 9) S TA N D A R D S CANON SEEKS DEVELOPMENT UNIFORMITY The manufacturing world pays lip service to the idea of standardizing design and development technologies. But nothing puts the notion into sharper focus than when a top executive of the world’s largest digital camera maker waxes on about the potential benefits of bringing uniformity to 3D CAD and PLM systems. “If we can standardize the way we display and describe 3D information for CAD systems, then our life is going to become much easier, particularly when we want to place orders between different parties,” Canon Inc. President and COO S U P P LY C H A I N Tsuneji Uchida told Manufacturing Executive in Tokyo. Canon, for which Europe is the leading market, uses Siemens NX PLM software for what it calls “prototype-less” development aimed at speeding design, mocking up production, and quickening time to market in the competitive camera and imaging market. It strives to share information internally and with the supply chain as it churns out cameras, copiers, and printers, and tries to expand into flat screen TVs and robots. Uchida credited the auto industry with having successfully worked out development standards, and said the electronics industry must follow suit. Canon will try first to implement standards internally and then share those with the supply chain, he said. Masaki Nakaoka, CEO of Canon’s copier division, provided a staggering reminder that PLM advancement is not only a software issue. “You have to have supercomputers with a speed which is faster than the competition’s,” he said. “Unless you have a speedier supercomputer, you will not win the race.” He suggested that Canon is in the market for a faster supercomputer. There were plenty of other concerns on the minds of Canon brass. In the depths of the global recession, Chairman and CEO Fujio Mitarai — who is also head of the Japanese Business Federation — cautioned Western markets not to practice protectionism. But PLM standardization was high up the to-do list as Canon, like most manufacturers, seeks operational efficiencies to try to reverse the economic malaise. SOURCING PRACTICING WHAT GURUS PREACH Airbus Seems Ready to Help Its Supply Chain Partners development input from its suppliers as it ramped up its nextgeneration wide body, the A350 XWB. But, as COO Fabrice Bregier told Manufacturing Executive, “It was not easy because our engineers were used to defining with their own detail.” But Bregier reaffirmed the companyʼs commitment to the process: “It leads to sharing what we call ʻdigital mock-ups.ʼ Itʼs what we call ʻextended enterprise.ʼ ” Airbus is even turning to China for design input, rather than simply as a low-cost manufacturing centre. This plays into the companyʼs Power8 restructuring programme, designed to cut €1.3 billion in costs and shed 10,000 jobs by 2010. The plan includes reducing suppliers and selling facilities to suppliers, such as the recent sale of its wing factory near Bristol, England, to GKN. What about bringing customers into the development process? Airbus is willing to listen to customers, but there are limits. Enders bemoaned what he called the “stupid” contract to deliver the A400M military transport plane to several European countries, a contract Airbus at press time was trying to renegotiate. “Like happens sometimes in military programmes, the customer ends up creating fantastic ideas about what should be built into the aircraft,” he said. Warning to manufacturers: Your customers can help give lift-off to innovative ideas. But donʼt let them fly solo. Diminishing Lean, and Other Heresies Manufacturing, like nature, is full of diverse life forms, each requiring different practices to thrive. A study by the University of Cambridge’s Institute for Manufacturing, “Making the Right Things in the Right Places,” examines tough decisions facing manufacturers, such as whether to make or buy, and whether and where to “offshore.” It also prescribes a methodology for deciding. “There’s no single right answer,” says Paul Christodoulou, a senior industrial fellow at Cambridge’s IFM. For instance, he says, network equipment maker Cisco outsources 95% of its manufacturing with a goal of 100% and a “dream never to touch their product.” Yet, Spanish fashion retailer Zara makes all of its goods in-house as part of a strategy that emphasizes responsiveness to shifting customer demand. “If a top Hollywood actress is wearing a new dress at the Oscar ceremonies, Zara can copy it and have it in the stores in two weeks,” Christodoulou says. The report includes some heresy. “Lean and offshoring are not necessarily enough,” he says. Manufacturing “may be moving to a different paradigm” in which companies must take account not only of low-cost labour, but also of risk, infrastructure, sustainability, supply chain reliability, and access to markets, resources, and skilled labour. Such is the richness of manufacturing life. Manufacturing MAR/APR-09 Executive B Airbus Photo: Maciej Noskowski ank lending is floundering, so manufacturing pundits predict that supply chains will increasingly find ways to finance themselves. The idea is that the “haves” will advance money to the “have-nots.” Count Airbus CEO Tom Enders as a lukewarm supporter of the idea. When asked at a press conference at Airbus facilities in Toulouse earlier this year whether Airbus would be willing to aid suppliers, Enders said, “We are not a charity organisation. We are protecting our cash as much as we can. On the other hand, we get into situations where our suppliers who are very critical are getting into big problems.” So, he told reporters, “We are making contributions.” He pointed to Airbusʼ €30 million participation in the €70 million Aerofund II, which Airbus set up last summer with French investment firm Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations and French aerospace manufacturer Safran Group to help suppliers. Enders said Airbus is “willing to do this in other places,” but only on a “very selective, discrete basis. Donʼt expect billions.” One popular manufacturing principle that Airbus wholly embraces is collaborative design with suppliers. In 2007, the company started inviting 9
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