A plan in action

What happens when employees from around our company work together regardless of their geographic location? Find out how those in our Midwest region reaped the benefits of Business Integration by collaborating with peers around the United States.

By Anne Wiskerchen

In 2005, Bob Chiusano, former executive vice president and chief operating officer of Commercial Systems, and Greg Churchill, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Government Systems, set out to develop an action plan to enable the people of Rockwell Collins to work together in a more seamless manner, regardless of their geographic locations.

Called Business Integration, this initiative identifies ways we can share knowledge, improve collaboration, increase productivity, and focus our innovation across the enterprise. Below are examples of how facilities throughout our Midwestern region have put Business Integration into action — finding solutions and assisting coworkers in need.

Manchester, Iowa, and San Jose, Calif.

Manchester, Iowa, is a long way from San Jose, Calif., but at Rockwell Collins, no distance is too great for our employees to assist a facility in need.

In March 2006, Lori Robinson was one of four Manchester employees who put their production line expertise to use in San Jose. By doing so, Robinson and the others created lasting relationships that helped strengthen communication and increase productivity.

According to Manchester Plant Manager Lea Montross, the call for assistance came from San Jose on a Friday afternoon in early March 2006.

In March 2006, Lori Robinson was one of four Manchester employees who put their production line expertise to use in San Jose. "I went to California to do a job, but I learned so much more," said Robinson. "There are always new ideas to take away and share." Photo by Scott Zebuhr.

"They were looking for help from an experienced quality auditor to provide support for a critical schedule recovery effort that was under way on their F15E display," Montross recalled. "Lori was well-versed in meeting and exceeding our quality standards and we all knew she could help get the project back on track."

Montross knew that the expert who went to California would need to leave as soon as possible — and be gone for two weeks. A couple hours after the initial request for help, Robinson stepped forward and volunteered to assist her colleagues in San Jose, and by Monday this quality production lead was on a plane bound for the West Coast.

"I went to California to do a job, but I learned so much more," said Robinson. "We're all part of the same company, but often we each do things a little bit differently — so there are always new ideas to take away and share."

Based on feedback from San Jose, the trip was a major success and Robinson's assistance in project inspections and helping with operator training was invaluable in getting the F15E display back on schedule and meeting customer commitments.

Similarly, the other Manchester employees who traveled to San Jose helped solve problems and allowed teams at both locations to share information, increase productivity and focus on innovation. The group realized that business integration is more than trading best practices; it's also about making personal connections.

"We built trust and friendships with our colleagues in California," said Robinson. "It is important to put a face with a name and create a relationship with the people you work with every day."

Bellevue, Iowa, and Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Finding better ways to meet deadlines and produce our products more efficiently is something all of our employees strive to accomplish. Last year, employees at our facility in Bellevue, Iowa, figured out a new way to do both as they worked with their colleagues in Cedar Rapids, to successfully transition an important communication system for the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

Early in 2006, the Bellevue facility began working with a pre-production manufacturing center in Cedar Rapids that was creating the initial design and production plan for the 787 Common Data Network. This plan will manage the information flow between the aircraft's onboard systems.

As the development continued, the two facilities decided to move the product from the pre-production facility in Cedar Rapids to the sustaining site in Bellevue earlier in the development cycle.

"We wanted to ensure that Bellevue would be fully operational and ready to support the customer need for final deliveries when called upon," said Jeanne Wilson, plant manager in Bellevue.

Managers at both sites agreed the first step would be to schedule a two-month co-build to allow everyone a chance to become familiar with the product. The earlier transition assured that Bellevue had upfront involvement in the pre-production design.

"This reduces the number of engineering design changes to assemblies released into production," said Laura Zeimet, value stream facilitator at Bellevue.

As a result, the transition process improved operational tools such as work instructions, tooling and fixtures for final product assembly. It also allowed our company to exceed committed deliveries to Smiths Aerospace in August and September. In fact, our customers at Boeing and Smiths believe the joint effort was a huge success in keeping production on schedule.

"The process went well and was truly beneficial for everyone involved," said Zeimet. "We were able to grow from lessons learned and develop best practices."

Coralville, Iowa, and Mexicali, Mexico

Asking for help is never easy, but when our Mexicali, Mexico, facility experienced a bottleneck during integration of new assemblies from our Tustin, Calif., facility, they knew they needed extra support to stay on schedule. The facility acted quickly and requested help building its 10 highest volume assemblies via the Process Center Community of Practice.

"I have tremendous respect for everyone at the Mexicali facility," said Mark Carlson, process center integrated product team leader at our Coralville, Iowa, facility. "Asking for help is often a tough thing to do, but when you finally do it, working together can really pay off for everyone involved."

Mark Carlson, process center integrated product team leader at our Coralville, Iowa, facility, approached his employees with a request for help from our Mexicali, Mexico, facility. "The overwhelmingly positive response I received from our employees added the emotional support needed to take on a project of this size," he said. Photo by Paul Marlow of The Creative Gene.

Carlson also leads the Process Center Community of Practice, an outlet for participants to share and leverage best practices. The group has representatives from process centers around the globe. After talking with Mexicali during the group's biweekly phone meeting, Carlson brought the request directly to his team of operators in Coralville.

"As the biggest process center in the enterprise, we were the logical choice to help, but the overwhelmingly positive response I received from our employees added the emotional support needed to take on a project of this size," he said.

Since material movement between facilities had never been attempted on this scale, daily meetings between Mexicali and Coralville schedulers helped form an efficient process of taking material in — and completed assemblies out. Engineers from Coralville were able to take Mexicali's machine programs and transfer them directly to their equipment with minimal adjustments.

"When obstacles came up, we found unique ways to work through them," said Greg Widmer, manager of Production Support at Coralville. "We worked hard to standardize equipment at all sites, which helped us switch production around when new lines became free."

Operators worked long hours to meet every Mexicali due date — while also maintaining their own customer needs. Coralville built 10 different Mexicali assemblies over a five-month period — assembling more than 13,000 circuit cards with more than six million machine placements. This opportunity paved the way for additional work transfers by creating and implementing several new processes including packaging handling and shipping coordination between the Mexicali, Coralville and Cedar Rapids, Iowa, shipping departments.

The entire process was accomplished while Coralville maintained a record-setting master production schedule.

"All of the hard work really paid off," said Carlson. "While assisting Mexicali, we were able to set an all-time record of 98.6 percent for our on-time daily deliveries."

Decorah, Iowa, and Bellevue, Iowa

Sometimes, showing someone how to perform a task can bring more learning and understanding than exchanging that knowledge using a piece of paper, an electronic file or a phone call.

While transferring equipment production and testing of a Business and Regional Systems radio frequency controller (CTL) to another site, our facility in Decorah, Iowa, realized all the benefits of performing a task together.

To meet deadlines and to complete production of the CTL controller on time, our Decorah facility would have had to hire and train eight additional employees. After discussing the situation, it was determined that instead of hiring new staff, the Bellevue facility had the capability to redeploy current employees to build and test the product line on schedule. Due to resource availability and past performance, transition to the Bellevue facility was the right choice.

"It made a lot of sense," said Marianne Huinker, industrial engineering technician at Decorah. "We allowed the Bellevue team to come and work side by side with us. They asked great questions, which helped them capture some of that 'tribal knowledge' you can't replicate any other way."

Marianne Huinker (left), an industrial engineering technician in Decorah, Iowa, helped employees from Bellevue learn how to build and test a radio frequency controller (CTL) in order to meet deadlines and ensure on-time completion. "We saw how sharing techniques decreased the learning curve and brought everyone up to speed quickly," said Huinker. Photo by Steve Carnesi.

In order to seamlessly convert production to the new facility, Decorah compacted the entire April build and test schedule, as well as a portion of the May schedule, into the first three weeks of April. To assist with the aggressive schedule, Bellevue and Decorah teamed together building and testing for those three weeks.

"Setting up a second flow line helped familiarize Bellevue with the process and put them ahead of schedule so when final transition occurred, they weren't just thrown into full production," said Huinker.

This teamwork allowed Bellevue personnel to become familiar with building, testing and supporting the product with the experienced operators and technicians from Decorah by their sides. Both locations also made sure that quality and schedules were not affected during transition.

"We saw how sharing techniques decreased the learning curve and brought everyone up to speed quickly," said Huinker.

Decorah's efforts paid off when the project was completed ahead of schedule with no impact on customers. Bellevue also was able to perform 100 percent of master production schedule in only its first month after transition.

Richardson, Texas, and Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Practice makes perfect and, very simply, that's what our Performance and Architectural Collaboration Environment (PACE) Lab in Richardson, Texas, provides to facilities across our enterprise.

Engineers at the lab simulate operational scenarios to speed development of network-centric solutions. The PACE Lab reduces costs and risks because solutions are first validated in a lab environment instead of in the field.

Cedar Rapids offered the lab a chance to test its functionality in May of 2006, when a Joint Precision Approach and Landing System (JPALS) pursuit team called looking for help creating a new way to verify data link protocol, a key technology in their pursuit efforts.

"It was critical to demonstrate to our pursuit partner that our company understood the required protocols and the system-of-systems requirements beyond the radio itself," said Jackson Anderson, senior engineering manager for Richardson's PACE Lab.

An appropriate system of systems approach involves the formulation and application of a cross-functional, multi-discipline team to ensure a complete understanding of the various interactions between the different systems. To accomplish this, Cedar Rapids and Richardson worked together to establish a plan to analyze, model and then verify the protocol's functionality in an operational simulation.

"The collaboration available in the PACE Lab along with the infrastructure allowed for quick development of the test-bed environment and for effective incorporation of changes to JPALS as issues were determined," said Anderson.

Technical leads agreed that the approach would not only validate the protocol as a best solution, but strengthen our technical position with our pursuit partner and end customer. Constant interaction between sites played a key role in making sure the testing executed smoothly.

"I think we both gained a better understanding of and appreciation for each others' capabilities," said Jim Sabin, principal systems engineer in Cedar Rapids. "We also learned that it's not possible, at least in an effort like this, to over-communicate."

In the end, this collaboration of expertise, technology and PACE Lab facilities has allowed Rockwell Collins to demonstrate our commitment to providing the most effective systems solution to the JPALS effort.

"I was very impressed with the ability of the Richardson team to perform the initial analysis tasks and then quickly and efficiently generate the required models," said Sabin. "They did a good job of involving the appropriate Cedar Rapids personnel in requirements, design and implementation reviews."