Benefits of Value Added Sourcing in Thermal Management

As the myriad electronic devices employed in defense, aviation and aerospace systems have become simultaneously smaller, higher in density and more powerful, the essential process of dispersing the intense heat they create has become more complex. At the same time, requirements for manufacturing efficiency and cost control are also an on-going focus in all successful enterprises.

In response to these combined pressures, many systems integrators and manufacturers are turning to thermal management specialist organizations that do far more than sell cooling fans.

Accommodating Value Added Procurement Practices

With the increase in the complexity of systems for new and upgraded platforms, optimizing the amount of resources that are being used from procurement to shipping is a principal concern for manufacturing management and program leaders. Companies are now asking those leaders to further define the total costs of procurement, direct labor and quality. Pressures from upper management to instill lean practices within an organization while maintaining cost, quality and on time delivery have never been greater.

These pressures can overtax an organization’s core capabilities, resulting in schedule overruns and/or quality issues amid customer pressures to deliver on time. Establishing a relationship with a Value Added Supplier who can provide both engineering support and a single source for next level of assembly requirements has become a proven approach to meet those challenges.

In the classic lean environment, many businesses talk of removing the ’non-value add’ from their processes. To drive maximum value in the manufacturing cycle, it is highly useful to include procured value add as a component of a successful lean model.

There are two types of value add that are especially relevant to manufacturers and integrators:

• build to print value add where a design solution is already documented and in place (make/buy decision) and
• engineered value add when companies work together with a Value Add Manufacturer to either design a solution from the ground up or revise the existing subsystem design to provide an optimized or more robust product.

For illustration purposes, we will be examining the prospects of using a value add supplier for a basic fan tray assembly.

Advantages of Build to Print Value Add

In a typical scenario, a company’s engineering design team takes the product requirements for a system and breaks it down into subsets of requirements or specifications. These specifications will, in time, turn into multiple bills of materials indentured at one or more levels to define the system and subsystems with drawings and documentation being created and released. This in turn, is entered into the Materials Requirements Planning (MRP) system for the procurement and manufacturing groups to act on, driving material and labor capacity plans as well as upstream/downstream inspection and QA responsibilities.

From a business standpoint, this will require varying degrees of time and effort by the manufacturer’s professional and direct labor resources to produce all of the lower level sub-assemblies and the finished manufactured system or product. Multiple transactions from procurement, receiving and stockroom, accounts payable and quality assurance take place before the assembly has even reached manufacturing. All of this usually will require multiple purchase order documents, supplier price negotiations and payments and coordination via email and phone from the business group. Operations resources are charged with multiple receipts, deliveries, stockroom and kitting transactions, inspections and sub-level job moves from the operations group.

With a value add build to print, the defined assembly or sub-assembly is built by the supplier to the released customer documentation; it arrives at the customer’s receiving dock assembled, quality inspected/tested and warranted as a ready item for issue to manufacturing for next level requirements. This assembly will carry the required certificate of conformance to contractual requirements and an OEM warranty. In most cases, the value add supplier has incorporated a customer’s drawings, processes and customer-approved supply base as their own. This makes the build to print procured item equivalent in all aspects and able to integrate into existing stock as well as being harmonized to previously fielded product.

Within a value added agreement for a dock-to-stock next level assembly, the item will only require one purchase order and one receipt, making it a true ‘one stop shop’ versus the multiple transaction event that occurs with bringing in MRP driven components separately.

The following example in Table illustrates transactions for both the soft costs involved in procurement, supply chain and quality functions as well as the hard costs associated with operational and manufacturing time in assigning material handling and direct labor resources to stage and build a cooling assembly:

We can see from the last line that efficiencies are gained by the reduction in non-value added transactions by purchasing and direct labor transactions in manufacturing. These costs should be part of any manufacturer’s make/buy decision process when analyzing for lean manufacturing, cost savings or in optimizing throughput and capacity.

Advantages of Engineered Value Add

Manufacturers usually do not have the technical expertise to define cooling solutions for their overall system requirements. Specialized knowledge is typically required in one or more of the following:

• Power requirements
• System thermal loads
• Air flow pressure drops through heat exchangers and ducting
• Environmental specifications

Having a supplier with experience and a proven history provide those types of solutions allows a manufacturer to concentrate on their own core competencies; the fan tray assembly becomes a purpose designed sub-system from an expert supply partner. This can remove a majority of any design time that is outside of a company’s core competencies, allowing the company to focus on the higher level integration tasks of building a finished system.

Another example would be where an existing design is not robust enough or is not meeting the desired performance. With the increased density of electronics and the associated higher heat generation, a value added supplier would be asked to make design improvements within the same or a specified space. Applying its specialized knowledge, the value added supplier would bring the system to a higher level of performance to meet the required increase in heat rejection.

Optimizing a manufacturer’s procurement approach by collaborating with a build to print or engineered value add supplier is a strong strategy that has been shown to reduce the complexity and risk involved in realizing successful product delivery.

Replace Fluid Cooling in Advanced Radar
The manufacturer needed to minimize size, weight and maintenance requirements for a mobile radar by changing from fluid to air cooling. AMETEK Rotron engineers utilized Thermal Management System application proficiencies to design then manage production of a total sub-system including multiple custom fans plus trays, harnesses and a specialized communication concept enclosed in a product specific package.

Solving Difficult Assembly Issues
A major commercial aircraft sub-contractor sought assistance in building a critical flight safety component that required difficult component materials fabrication and in turn product assembly steps. Working from existing documentation, the value added supplier employed its experience, specialized skills and supply chain understanding to create and implement a unique manufacturing scheme to produce the end item. The product is fully assembled, tested and delivered in accordance with the customer’s JIT (Just In Time) assembly schedule.