McDonnell Douglas IMACS

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McDonnell Douglas IMACS

• Integrated Manufacturing Control System

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McDonnell St. Louis

• Early 1990s St. Louis factory one of worlds
  largest manufacturing plants
• Subsidiary of Boeing
• IS/IT system outdated
• Antiquated material control system
• Inadequate resource planning
• No MRP one of few aircraft plants without MRPII

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IS/IT System

• Had just attempted update of mainframe system
• Pilot test successful
• Not SCALABLE
• Couldnt cope with full plant volume of
  information
• 1994 Task force formed to recommend methods to
  reduce costs
• Driven in part by declining defense budgets
• Need to refocus IS on return on net assets

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Task Force Recommendations

• Implement an ERP
• From Western Data Systems
• Named IMACS
• 1st use of commercial, off-the-shelf
  client/server ERP in military aircraft industry
• Hewlett Packard hardware
• Oracle relational database
• Rejected large, expensive vendor

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IMACS Goals

• Reduce inventory levels
• By several hundreds of millions of dollars
• Reduce support costs
• By hundreds of people
• Ease work transfer
• Between Boeing suppliers
• Institutionalize improvements
• Improve Return On Investment

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IMACS Progress

• 1st applied BPR
• 1994 through 1996
• Customers involved
• Started with business processes, not systems
• Clean slate approach
• Sought to modify selected software as little as
  possible

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Training

• Extensive training applied
• Eight courses developed
• Delivered on CD-ROM for 18 positions
• Saved over 250,000 over alternatives

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Integration

• Integrated 38 systems
• ERP Project Team
• 150 Boeing employees
• Vendor team members
• Western Data Systems
• Hewlett Packard
• Oracle
• Pilot test 1995, modified 1997
• 1999 all products converted

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IMACS Functionality

• Measured
• Inventory
• Cycle time
• Cost
• Delivery performance
• Product quality
• Easier to identify work in process
• Lead times reduced
• Fewer materials shortages
• Lower product costs