Original Date: 07/25/2005
Revision Date: 09/12/2006

Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems’ integration of its Systems Applications Products-based Manufacturing Execution System and Integrated System for Engineering provides real-time, revision-level control to the manufacturing process and ensures material configuration management. By directly supplying authoritative product data to the Manufacturing Execution System, personnel at all levels of the organization can validate skill and certification requirements to ensure that applicable revision notices are incorporated into production items. The real-time provision of this information is a direct result of the integration of product data with the manufacturing plan to provide instantaneous distribution of engineering data and product updates.

Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems (NGES) uses Systems Applications Products (SAP) software modules for its Manufacturing Execution System (MES) to provide the functions of work scheduling, management of employee certifications, time and attendance, and maintenance management. This system provides real-time manufacturing and quality data collection, maintains priority of planned tasks, and provides continual verification of work center skills and certifications.

NGES’ Integrated System for Engineering (ISE) provides a single authoritative source of product data that is essential to the manufacturing function. The ISE is the source of Master Material Data that includes serialization and shelf-life attributes, bills of material (BOMs) that define primary and alternate parts information and reference designators, revision notice- (RN-) to-part relationships, and documentation and image retrieval. The RN-to-part relationships are essential to maintaining proper configuration of the many items produced by the different NGES production cells.

The integration of the SAP and ISE software tools has been instrumental in providing a near real-time linkage of configuration management to the manufacturing processes. Documentation, RNs, part and BOM data, and design imagery are all immediately available to the SAP modules. Once this technical data is linked to the production information, revision-level control is established on the production floor using integrated data within the MES applications. Web-based applications available to all production personnel provide a virtual dashboard for order processing. This user-friendly, point-and-click tool allows production personnel to select a task while verifying that required skills are met and necessary certifications are valid. Direct links are provided to access and view electronic documentation such as drawing revisions, parts lists, work instructions, test specifications, and RNs. Once a job is completed, a checklist is provided to ensure that all necessary production steps are accomplished, that all applicable RNs have been incorporated, and that the necessary quality reviews are completed.

Proper management of current and accurate data made available to the workforce is essential to world-class performance. NGES has accomplished this through the successful integration of the MES and ISE. Employees are now supplied with current real-time information to enhance their work performance.

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