October Breakfast Meeting
PNAA 2011 Company of the Year Award Winner GM Nameplate:
"Quality Management and Its Impact on the Aerospace Supply Chain"

GM Nameplate’s Director of Aerospace Operations, Paul Michaels provided our recent Breakfast Meeting crowd with a very enlightening look at the company’s approach to quality.  In its nearly 60 years, GM Nameplate has adapted to many changes across the industries it supports.  In addition to juggling unique lead times for each industry, the company has been meeting the challenges and opportunities offered by recent  aerospace production rate increases.  The company has, in fact, been honored by several awards, including Boeing’s Supplier of the Year for the past three years and PNAA’s Company of the year in 2011.  Michaels explained, however, that it is important that a company never rest on its laurels.  Awards don’t define the company, the process defines the company.  It was this belief, in part, that created the impetus for the implementation of a unique project that has had stunning results for the company’s production capacity.

In a bold move to improve their production processes to better enable them to meet the increased production rate, GM Nameplate invited Boeing’s internal Value Stream Team (VST) to help the company conduct a detailed analysis of their processes.  Through a process that included every employee who touches the product (and some creative scheduling to maintain production during this week-long exercise), the team built a “road map” of how to move their production process from the “current state” to a more efficient “future state.”  Michaels said that the VST offered constructive challenges every step of the way, and elicited feedback from people who may have never been asked “how can we do this better?”

This enlightening process resulted in a schedule of eight major projects, to be completed by May 2013.  With only three of these projects completed so far, GM Nameplate has already reduced their internal flow time by 20%, while maintaining a high level of quality (fewer than 1% internal rejects).

Michaels recognizes that engaging the customer to facilitate this process was highly unconventional; in fact, his Boeing contact told him that GM Nameplate was only the first or second supplier with whom they had done this kind of exercise.  He believes that his team benefited much more through collaborating with their customer than they would have had they gone the conventional route of enlisting a consultant or internal resources to help with the process.  Michaels reinforced this idea with a quote from Boeing’s Stan Deal: “A true collaboration exists when it’s a win for both companies.”  Indeed, as Michaels further pointed out, “what we do for Boeing is a benefit for all [customers].”

PNAA is proud to have been able to bring this presentation to our membership and sincerely thanks Paul Michaels and GM Nameplate for their willingness to share such an inspiring story with us.  We are fortunate to be able to look to our membership for inspiration and ideas for how to make improvements within our own organizations and the industry as a whole.  As always, we welcome you to submit your ideas for future meeting topics, and we hope to see you at an upcoming meeting.

Click here for Paul Michaels' Breakfast Meeting Presentation (9MB File)

 October Breakfast Meeting
PNAA 2011 Company of the Year Award Winner GM Nameplate:
"Quality Management and Its Impact on the Aerospace Supply Chain"

Join your colleagues at a Breakfast Meeting
Thursday, October 18 • 7:30 a.m. - 9:30 a.m.
Red Lion Hotel in Bellevue, WA

Join PNAA on Thursday, October 18th in Bellevue for a networking breakfast with Paul Michaels, Director of GM Nameplate. Michaels will address the recent call to action put forth by Boeing’s John Byrne, VP of Aircraft Materials & Structures to improve quality while cutting costs.  

As ‘Supplier of the Year’ for the last three years running, GM Nameplate will highlight challenges and opportunities foreseen in meeting Boeing’s (and other OEM’s) requirements for production rate increases.

Topics Include:

•    The impact of quality and cost on the aerospace supply chain
•    The top three challenges in meeting OEM production rate increases
•    Critical success factors for GM Nameplate as a repeat winner of ‘Supplier of the Year’