Bombardier Transportation CZ (BTCZ)- plant in Česká Lípa, producing “carbody” – train bodies or their parts – assemblies, plant with 100 years of history, regionally very important.
Customers are Bombardier’s own plants in Germany, Belgium and France.
The final customers are national carriers, such as the German, Austrian, French and Belgian railways, as well as regional carriers within individual EU countries.
Globally, Bombardier attaches great importance and full weight to workplace safety, environmental protection and, last but not least, to acting legally in full compliance with Bombardier’s internal policies, which are more stringent than legal requirements.
In 2016, the Česká Lípa plant had to absorb a significant increase in orders, the preparation of an investment project, and the launch of a new project. This brought with it demands for accelerated but still high-quality recruitment and employment of welders and straighteners.
The working requirements for passenger car welders are very strict, BTCZ holds an accreditation for an authorised welding school, which is separate from the BTCZ structure.
An average good welder with no experience in rolling stock production was able to pass the welding school in about 3-6 weeks, and such a welder was able to achieve 100% performance on the line in about 3 months. The straightener position required – for a person with basic experience – at least 18 months of training with an experienced straightener to understand the basic procedures appropriate and accepted in rolling stock manufacturing.
The middle management of the company is made up of colleagues “grown up” from production operators, very often for remuneration / seniority. This significantly strengthens loyalty to the company, but this is often associated with blind maintenance of the status quo without any ideas/inventiveness of their own.
Česká Lípa is a collection point for Škoda Auto a.s., the area has a very developed industry – Tier 1 and others.
Production at BTCZ was organized in several units
- Production of primary parts
- High demands on accuracy, timeliness, quantity.
- Production capacity filled to 98% of the total time pool.
- Machinery outdated but maintained in good condition with occasional, hard to predict shutdowns.
- Production planning in primary parts is fully within the competence of production.
- SAP as a “control tool”, most communication Excel, mail etc.
- Drawing documentation in paper form.
- Staffing – 100% tribe, high average age (50+).
- Loyalty to the company.
- Carbody production
- 3 large ongoing projects – PH (approx. 45%), Talent (approx. 35%), NAT (approx. 20%).
- Project M7 – new, start up.
- Capacity filled to 97%, capacity plan including planned absences, training, holidays etc.
- The machinery matched the age of the running projects, new projects – new equipment.
- Production planning is fully within the competence of planning.
- SAP as a production tool / main tool.
- Drawing documentation in paper form.
- Staffing – 75% tribe, 25% agency
- Lakovna
- Outdated concept, physical fitness, dexterity required.
- Production capacity filled to 100-105% of the capacity plan.
- Machinery outdated, inadequate – investment of 35 ME in a new paint shop.
- The planning is fully within the competence of the paint shop planning.
- SAP as “control”, otherwise excel, mail etc.
- Staffing – painters – 100% tribe, prepainters / makeup artists – 50/50, blasting – 100% agency – project to be outsourced inside the paint shop.
The biggest challenge for the next days, weeks and months was to prepare for the significantly increased need for working hours due to the increasing production schedule and new, agreed projects.
Production plan (2016 – 0.9 million), 2017 – 1,250,000 hours worked and 2018 – 1,750,000 hours worked.
As a newcomer to the rolling stock industry, it was essential for me to understand planning, optimise it and anchor it firmly in the daily life of the company through SAP.
The next step was to address the steep increase in required hours worked, where I already knew from experience that hiring the necessary staff for the tribe/agency would be very complex and difficult, as their success would depend on the robustness of the induction/training process.
To reduce the constant pressure, it was also necessary to stabilise the machinery and personnel.
All of the above was coupled with an effort to find savings, both in the use of human and production capacities and to ensure the competitiveness of the plant in terms of hourly rates in Bombardier’s internal market.
The following measures were taken in the Primary Parts section:
- Planning:
- Set up communication flows – veto power – master plant planner, structured information to all levels of the company including management and production operators.
- SAP – basic tool, setting levels in SAP, control, termination of “secondary” planning excel, mails.
- Working with planning, transferring primary parts planning staff under the planning department.
- Planning sequence, division of parts into A, B, C – according to their “need” – daily monitoring.
- Capacity:
- Launching a full outsourcing project of the primary parts department in cooperation with the purchasing department.
- Start-up of partial outsourcing – 3000 hours / month.
- Scheduling machine servicing / securing time slot for shutdown.
- Introduction of autonomous and preventive maintenance.
- New balancing of machine loads due to partial outsourcing.
- Appointment of “owners” of groups of parts – “master” – transfer of experience.
- In cooperation with the technical department, setup/limit change management.
- Digitization of documentation:
- Starting pilot projects for “terminals” in production – online debiting of manufactured orders directly at the workplace.
- Ability to display and print the drawing.
- Connection to SAP / hourly records.
- Automation of production of subgroups of primary parts and selected weldments:
- Entered into a continuous improvement programme.
- Owner – Production Manager / Foreman / Project Manager.
- Monthly progress report.
- Total savings of more than 80k hours.
Measures taken in the section Production of carbody:
- Daily meetings always started with a “P”, management pressure on OHS, joint meetings with unions and operators over OHS and quality issues.
- Change of responsibility for employee training – from quality department / welding school – to foreman / foreman to ensure sufficient training, redesign of training concept in welding school – introduction of morning, afternoon and night training shifts – capacity for training, clear responsibility of supervisor for success / failure of new employee, introduction of employee card, monitoring 2 x weekly.
- Training of middle management, training of new / additional teamleaders (foremen) for the possibility of handing over responsibilities – pool for new foremen, THP workers.
- Training provided by the technical department – reading drawings, knowledge of SAP, technical trends, technology.
- Visiting the customer, meeting with peers – exchanging experiences – contacts and understanding the customer’s needs.
- Improved planning communication – project planners physically moved closer to foremen’s offices.
- Outsourcing entire subgroups to external partners to reduce pressure on BTCZ:
- Organization of new projects:
- Determination of responsibilities.
- Daily meeting/needs/resources.
- Building a team of experienced welders/straighteners and newcomers.
The position of “senior operator” – fully dedicated to supporting newcomers to the workplace – very often an experienced, senior employee with a high level of responsibility and loyalty to the company – also showing respect for pre-retirement / senior employees.
General improvements:
- Ensure understanding of the role of the leader in terms of team involvement, HSE, quality, company results.
- Restart the development program – add champions to the TOP management development program.
- Understand the financial management of the department / hand over responsibility for the department budget to the foreman.
Results:
- Advanced safety and quality management by promoting best practices from other Group plants or from Bombardier regulations.
- Improvement in dealing with reported early accidents – +98%.
- LTI-FR improved by 75% over 12 months.
- Successful implementation of behavioural audits, safety accountability project and safety campaigns.
- Accelerated cost reduction:
- Better direct time/costs consisting of Project Talent and NAT – 6%; Project PH – 5%.
- Improved indirect time and service time for all projects by 4% and 3%, PH -2.5%.
- Productivity increase of +7% due to production cost savings.
- Started implementation of Bombardier operating system including 5S, VSM, PDCA and Q6.
- Managed outsourcing – 155 thousand working hours to external partners.
- Continuous improvement – development and implementation of robots and a project to automate the welding of longitudinal beams with a semi-robot.
Reflection/evaluation
In Česká Lípa I had to go through a mental change when moving from a service role (HSE) to an executive role – Production Director. At the same time, I had to understand and not accept the culture in a plant with over a century of history, with incredibly loyal and experienced people.
I also have to look at Bombardier with the experience of the automotive industry – Faurecia – where the change was thought up on Monday, agreed on Tuesday, processed on Wednesday, verified on Thursday, the necessary adjustments were made over the weekend, and on Monday it was unbolted and the event went ahead.
Not so Bombardier. The team was ready for a “formal” change, i.e. a decision, but the required action was delayed, not addressed, until finally everything went back to normal.
And there I heard – the Bombardier is like a tanker, you push the button, nothing happens on the outside, but the engines are working, the rudder is turning, but the tanker is still going in the same direction. You’re still waiting. And the engines are still running, the rudder is still turned in the desired direction. If you ease off at this point, there’s no change.
I have to keep adding fuel to the engines, I have to keep the rudder on a steady course and suddenly …. You start to feel the boat slowly turning, the longer you hold, you supply the power, the more visible the change is, which is firmly in your hand.
But remember, you “only” pushed the right button, pointed the direction and delivered the fuel. The rest is
- Ocean – corporate/business environment – it is necessary to choose the right speed
- tanker design – factory, equipment, systems, know-how,
- engines – a team that should be fine-tuned,
- fuel – that’s the energy you give to people.
Bombardier is a great experience for me with the flavor of oil emulsion and the smell of welded iron.
I find Bombardier to be an amazing, strong team full of people who have found each other and learned a lot together.
For the BL4U team Milan P.