Clean, bright factory floors

Walk around Bombardier's Challenger and Global aircraft plants in Dorval, Quebec located next to Pierre Elliot Trudeau International Airport – and you are immediately struck by how bright and clean they are. Sunlight floods in the hangars' high windows, the floors are white, and the walls are decorated in large photo murals touting Bombardier's products and people.

There is also a series of roped-off walkways that run through the jet integration areas, allowing customers to visit their aircraft during their various stages of assembly. Bombardier even has an array of on-site amenities for visiting fly-in customers at this plant, including conference rooms and dining facilities. This is part of the company's efforts to build relationships with its clients, in a bid to build repeat long-term sales.

As eye-catching as Bombardier's Dorval factory floors are, they are also central to the company's advanced and ever-evolving methods of aerospace manufacturing; both here and at the company's commercial aircraft factories (such as the C Series and CRJ regional jet plant in Mirabel, Quebec and the Q400 turboprop plant in Toronto, Ontario).

“Our aerospace factories reflect our determination to constantly improve products and processes, while keeping waste and Foreign Object Debris (FOD) to a minimum,” says Paul Sislian, Bombardier Business Aircraft's chief operating officer. “Working in a clean, bright environment is an important part of making this happen, as is our use of LEAN manufacturing practices.”

Emphasis on calm and quality

By manufacturing standards, Bombardier's Challenger plant in Dorval is relatively calm and quiet. There is a sense of people knowing their jobs as they work away on the jets, lined up side-by-side along the length of the factory floor. Each jet is a hive of activity as crews work around it on specific stages of integration, from combining the fuselage sections and wings to adding the final green aircraft details. (Finishing is done in another part of the factory).

The same is true for the shopfloor at the Global plant. Here, one wall is lined with hangar doors. When an aircraft is ready for flight testing, the technicians simply open the nearest doors and roll it onto the tarmac.

“We follow many procedures to keep our factory floors organized and operating well,” states Sislian. “They include our ‘Achieving Excellence' system, where small groups throughout the factory and management meet at the start of each shift to identify issues, devise solutions, and discuss better ways of doing things. The outcomes of these meetings work their way up to upper managers, each of whom has their own meetings where they consider this input and act on it.”

Bombardier is also extremely focused on reducing FOD in addition to being highly-efficient with its tooling system by tracking each and every part used during assembly (either electronically or on paper).

“We keep a close eye on tools using controlled tool cribs, where each tool that is removed has to be signed out, and then signed in at shift's end,” adds Sislian. “Each new shift has to literally sign for the tool kit they receive. If there's something missing, they spot it and tell us about it – and we find it fast.”

Factory floor advances

As Bombardier develops a new family of aircraft like the C Series passenger jetliners and Global 7000/Global 8000 business jets, the company develops new ways of manufacturing and process management. Some of these advances work their way across the entire operation.

“The C Series' documentation flow is paperless and we are moving away from using paper in our older aircraft families,” says François Minville, Bombardier Commercial Aircraft's vice-president for Information Systems and Industrialisation.
Other advances are unique to the newest family of aircraft; notably the C Series.

“For our other aircraft platforms, we are still very much a manufacturer that starts with bare metal,” Minville explains. “But when it comes to the C Series, we are essentially integrating finished components – such as the fuselage – which come to us from suppliers worldwide.”

Bombardier has practical reasons for moving to a just-in-time/integrator-style manufacturing approach (although some subassemblies are still built in its plants). Firstly, doing so allows the factory to adopt an automotive manufacturing model, where production is focussed on installation/integration rather than fabrication.

“This is a more efficient way of producing aircraft, and one that allows us to bring our direct attention to the most demanding aspects of aircraft manufacturing,” Sislian reveals.

Secondly, working closely with suppliers who produce finished components instead of just supplying raw materials and basic parts, allows some of the investment and risk to be shared rather than Bombardier carrying it all on its own.
Another major change brought in by the C Series programme is the supplying of finished on-pylon PW1000G engines by Pratt & Whitney.

“Requiring the engine manufacturer to supply finished on-pylon engines, rather than having us add the pylons and nacelles ourselves – saves a lot of time in assembly,” says Minville. “It also gives P&W responsibility for ensuring that the nacelles and other components are properly fitted, instead of us. That takes a job off our shoulders.”

Bombardier's C Series' production line is also using a combination of robotics and an internal GPS system to mate major components of this next generation passenger aircraft.

“The C Series CS100 and CS300 are tightly engineered to maximise performance while minimising fuel consumption,” adds Minville. “We need GPS-aided robotics to make sure that our integration hits the required tolerances. Nothing less will do.”
Looking ahead, Bombardier plans to move its commercial aircraft production platforms to fully moving assembly lines; just like an automotive plant.

“Having moving lines of aircraft will help us tighten up production times, and enhance quality improvements and standardisation at each station,” concludes Minville. “In a highly competitive market like aerospace manufacturing, we need to introduce every advance we can to stay successful and profitable.”

All told, Bombardier's aircraft manufacturing approach emphasises clean, careful, and well thought-out processes; with an eye to doing things as efficiently and rationally as possible. The result is a production environment that looks more like the showroom of a luxury car dealership, than a typical factory floor.

www.bombardier.com