ELCAN Richardson Wins Raytheon 6Sigma Chairman's Award 2002
USAF Common Large Area Display Set (CLADS) Delivery Project

The ELCAN Digital Display Group develops and deploys display-system solutions for military and commercial applications using Texas Instruments DMD™ and DLP™ technology, to provide digital high resolution, bright and rugged displays.

ELCAN Optical Technologies is a Raytheon Company, and has manufacturing locations in Dallas, Texas and Midland, Ontario, Canada.

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The Common Large Area Display Set (CLADS) Program was awarded to the Digital Display Group to replace CRTs with high-resolution flat panel displays in USAF radar planes. The contract was awarded in August 1999 for an initial quantity release of 61 units. Two subsequent releases were exercised for a quantity of 435 and 126 units respectively.

Delivery of 622 units was to be completed in October 2001.

By the end of August 2001, there was a contract delinquency of 401 units. A recent rash of field failures exacerbated the lack of customer satisfaction.

The manufacturing capacity of DDG is 60 units per month in order to meet the contract delivery requirement of 45 units per month. The largest quantity previously delivered in a single month had been 20 units.

What prevented the required delivery of 45 units per month from being met, given the apparent adequate capacity?

Commit

ELCAN Leadership committed to make the necessary staffing and finances available in support of the R6Sigma initiative.

A cross-functional project team was formed, plus the R6Sigma expert-facilitator. The assigned team committed to establish the current state of the CLADS manufacturing process.

Prioritize

As the process flow was laid out, it was realized that there were five critical process test points that impacted the final yield of the CLADS unit. The analysis of the yield data at each of the critical points revealed that the multiple resulted in a first pass yield of 19%. A manufacturing capacity of 60 units per month would result in only 11 units yielded at first pass.

The resulting Pareto analysis of Yield enabled the team to attack the processes having the largest impact on the first pass yield.

Characterize

Characterization used R6Sigma tools such as physical process maps, brainstorming and root cause analysis and 5 Whys.

The Team used data collected during the Prioritize phase and in some cases added to this data as it identified opportunities for improvements.

These opportunities were indeed cross functional and touched Sales and Marketing, Contracts, Quality, Design, Process Planning, Production Planning, Program Management, Purchasing and Manufacturing departments; as well as key suppliers and the Customer.

The team implemented the following interim actions as a result of the Root Cause Analysis:

• Screen for conformal coat in-house prior to system assembly.
• Supplier corrected the process for conformal coat masking issues on SXGA board.
• Inspect for/rework defective motor control chips.
• DDG retrofit at Tinker AFB resolved color wheel tape issues.
• Test/rework faulty solder on Ball Grid Array (BGA) parts.
• Implement second shift production operation. A similar Root Cause Analysis was performed with the customer on the field failures.

  Improve

  During the Improve phase, an MS Project plan laid out and tracked the improvement activities identified. This process also highlighted other potential opportunities involving additional resources within Raytheon and the USAF. The following improvements were made:

• Next generation SXGA CCAs were incorporated to improve producibility and testability of the semi-mature prior-generation electronics.
• Optical variability was reduced by ELCAN-Midland.
• FPGA sockets were eliminated.
• Firmware refinements were implemented for video flashing.
• Suppliers provided producibility assessments to improve reliability of manufacturing process.
• Modified AWACS power supply boards, in conjunction with supplier, to eliminate problems with customer power causing field failures.

  Government-Furnished Test Equipment was acquired to support required production capacity.

  Achieve

• Achieved consistent monthly delivery rate of 35 units per month, increasing revenue and cash flow proportionately.
• Now delivering ahead of schedule. Customer is very pleased, and also reports that the units are exceeding their performance and reliability expectations.
• First pass yield rose from 19% to 52%.
• Reduced test/rework labour hours per unit by 75%.
• Returns have dropped dramatically.
• Renegotiated contract from 45 units to 30 units per month and eliminated prior contractual delinquencies.
• Changed USAF RYG report card from "Red" to "Green".

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