Transcript McDonnell Douglas IMACS Integrated Manufacturing Control System

McDonnell Douglas IMACS
Integrated Manufacturing Control
System
McDonnell St. Louis
• Early 1990s St. Louis factory one of world’s
largest manufacturing plants
– Subsidiary of Boeing
• IS/IT system outdated
– Antiquated material control system
– Inadequate resource planning
– No MRP; one of few aircraft plants without
MRPII
IS/IT System
• Had just attempted update of mainframe system
– Pilot test successful
– Not SCALABLE
• Couldn’t cope with full plant volume of information
• 1994 Task force formed to recommend methods to
reduce costs
– Driven in part by declining defense budgets
– Need to refocus IS on return on net assets
Task Force Recommendations
• Implement an ERP
– From Western Data Systems
– Named IMACS
• 1st use of commercial, off-the-shelf client/server
ERP in military aircraft industry
• Hewlett Packard hardware
• Oracle relational database
– Rejected large, expensive vendor
IMACS Goals
• Reduce inventory levels
– By several hundreds of millions of dollars
• Reduce support costs
– By hundreds of people
• Ease work transfer
– Between Boeing & suppliers
• Institutionalize improvements
• Improve Return On Investment
IMACS Progress
• 1st applied BPR
– 1994 through 1996
– Customers involved
– Started with business processes, not systems
• Clean slate approach
• Sought to modify selected software as little
as possible
Training
• Extensive training applied
• Eight courses developed
– Delivered on CD-ROM for 18 positions
– Saved over $250,000 over alternatives
Integration
• Integrated 38 systems
• ERP Project Team:
– 150 Boeing employees
– Vendor team members
• Western Data Systems
• Hewlett Packard
• Oracle
• Pilot test 1995, modified 1997
• 1999 all products converted
IMACS Functionality
• Measured
–
–
–
–
–
•
•
•
•
Inventory
Cycle time
Cost
Delivery performance
Product quality
Easier to identify work in process
Lead times reduced
Fewer materials shortages
Lower product costs