Visualisation of Shop Floor Production Planning in an ETO Environment

Abstract

For the past two decades, the space industry has become more competitive, shifting from institutional investors to private ones. The change has lead to an increased focus on economic returns and the customer. To compete in this new market, companies need to become more efficient and shorten their lead times. More systematic planning, execution, and follow up of the production plans can be a way to achieve this. Therefore, this thesis investigates the applicability of a standardised visualisation of short term planning in the production of space components. The project is conducted at RUAG Space AB in Gothenburg, a company producing various electronic products for the space industry. The project intends to develop a conceptual solution, focusing on identifying requirements and potential challenges rather than an actual implementation. The project used a between-method triangulation approach to establish the concept requirements. The triangulation included a literature review, semi-structured interviews and a survey. Based on the identified requirements, a visual concept was created to guide the development process of the functionalities. The outcome of the project is a conceptual visualisation solution implemented in the Qlik Sense analytics platform. The solution aims to provide decision support and facilitate shop floor autonomy, as it was found vital to cope with uncertainties in Engineer to Order (ETO) environments. One of the project’s major challenges was to create a solution that is both standardised and flexible. The developed concept will be part of the company’s Management for Daily Improvement (MDI) boards to support visual management and continuous improvements. Even though the solution has been developed for a case company, the functionalities could be valuable for other companies acting in a similar environment.