GE Aviation was challenged with a complex supply chain and product lifecycle, which spans at least 55 different organizations and departments within the business. Its legacy system for record keeping was more than 20 years old, and there was no way to cascade engineering change orders (ECOs) into manufacturing change orders (MCOs) since the underlying engineering bill of materials (EBOM) was not integrated to the manufacturing bill of materials (MBOM). Managing complexity, coupled with a wave of new product introductions, was difficult-especially given the manual hand-off of information from the engineering organization to manufacturing. With GE engines powering roughly 34,000 commercial aircraft and 24,500 military vehicles-including helicopters, surface vehicles and combat aircraft-ensuring the highest standard of quality and safety would be imperative despite a complex product lifecycle.
GE Aviation determined that the best way to integrate EBOM and MBOM, while allowing for inevitable changes that would occur during the engineering and manufacturing processes, was to transfer them into a single, holistic solution for product lifecycle management (PLM). Solutions from several vendors were considered, including Aras' Innovator platform.
GE Aviation selected Aras Corporation and the Aras Innovator platform-an open, flexible, scalable and upgradeable solution for PLM. In the early stage evaluation of vendors, GE Aviation registered for a demo of Aras' solution. They received a call from a product support specialist to address any early questions and explain how things would work for the company. Beyond the Innovator platform's capabilities, the customer service provided by Aras was a key reason to partner with the company. Aras' unique model-based, service-oriented architecture made it flexible enough to evolve with changing demands or customizations. It is easily upgradeable and open, so other applications or legacy systems are able to work within the platform.
The Aras Innovator platform eliminated the manual hand-off between the GE Aviation's engineering organization, manufacturing organization and supply chain. The process of new part set-up was digitized, and data quality was improved, as was order release cycle. While users had once needed to log into multiple systems to execute their work, everything became centrally located and accessible through Aras Innovator. As a result of deploying this solution, GE Aviation has seen a higher level of quality, including 62% fewer changes to analyze, 82% less data entry and 80% reduction in number of tools.
The GE Aviation portfolio consists of commercial engines, military engines and related systems. In Aras Innovator, this translates to 171,000 global items, 262,000 organization items, 43,000 BOMs and 818,000 component lines.
GE Aviation's commercial engines, the GE90, GE9X and GEnx, power Boeing aircraft and feature larger, lightweight and more aerodynamic fan blades than found in other engines, made from carbon-fiber and toughened epoxy, versus titanium. Likewise, the variety of military engines manufactured by GE (intended for combat, tanker/transport, mature fleet, etc.) are built to be strong, agile and infuse the latest technology.
GE Aviation was founded in 1917. David L. Joyce is a Vice Chair of GE and President and CEO for GE Aviation. Joyce leads GE's efforts to establish and grow an additive manufacturing equipment, materials and services business, as well as accelerate additive manufacturing applications across GE. He joined GE in 1980 as a product engineer and spent 15 years advancing his career in design and development of GE's commercial and military engines. His contributions encompassed nine different engine families powering 15 base aircraft models, including advanced technology applications.
GE Aviation currently employs 20,000 people. GE Aviation is a world-leading provider of commercial and military jet engines and components as well as integrated digital, electric power and mechanical systems for aircraft. GE Aviation is the largest provider of jet engines. Every two seconds, an aircraft with GE technology is taking off, including military fleets.
For more information contact:
Aras Corp.
300 Brickstone Square
Suite 700
Andover, MA 01810-1492
978-691-8900
info@aras.com
www.aras.com