Process Improvement - Projects Unlimited

Company Profile: Located in Dayton, Ohio, Projects Unlimited Inc. is a third generation,family owned, SO 9001/AS9100 certified business. With nearly 60 years in the aerospace industry,the company has grown to approximately 120 employees. Their craftsmen build highly reliable electronics for such challenging environments as missiles, braking control systems for aircraft, electrical load management systems, and remote weather reporting stations, and have the capability and capacity to take a product from prototype to full-volume production.

Projects Unlimited is a preferred supplier to several prime contractors that include Boeing, Lockheed, Bell Helicopter, and Smiths/GE Aerospace. In January of 2007 Project Unlimited was awarded Bell Helicopter’s top supplier award at the Bell’s annual supplier conference. Projects Unlimited has earned awards as a Platinum supplier to Northrop Grumman, Silver Certified Supplier to Boeing in addition to being named as the exclusive long term supplier to Aircraft Braking Systems Corporation and a growth supplier to Bell Helicopter and all the Textron Companies.

Project: The aerospace industry is growing rapidly, which in turn is causing capacity constraints at smaller suppliers such as Projects Unlimited. Realizing that they needed to quickly address this demand for increased capacity, Projects Unlimited took advantage of the Boeing Ohio Investment in Training Program (OITP) grant match program, made available to the Ohio Boeing suppliers, and contracted with TechSolve to assist them with the funding of the project and enable them to meet these demands head-on.

Results: Projects Unlimited contracted TechSolve to implement a setup reduction/quick changeover improvement process to allow them to meet customer demands without the expense of excess inventory. Customized solutions and kaizen events focused on the areas of 5S and setup reduction. Setup reduction led to a substantial decrease in the time it took for the physical change over process from one product to another. 5S training resulted in a 30-second rule to locate needed parts and equipment on the job. Implementation of a quality-check at the source by the staff reduced rework and increased turnaround time. Further tweaking to an existing washer-unit with a simple change to the pressure nozzle dramatically decreased the rework.

“We are very pleased with the results that TechSolve helped our team achieve. The solutions are very focused and require that all members be an active participant. We are in the process of engaging TechSolve to perform similar solutions with our RFQ process.”

Dave Browning, Executive Vice President, Aerospace Division