In Episode 63 of Razorleaf’s Stay Sharp podcast, From Paper to Pixels: Transforming Manufacturing with Digital Work Instructions, co-hosts Jen Ferello and Jonathan Scott welcome Darrell Sabourin from iBase-t. Darrell, an expert on digital operations tools for complex manufacturing environments with some 40 years in the Aerospace & Defense industry, previously spoke with Jen and Jonathan in Stay Sharp Episode 14: Decoding Complexity: Exploring MES and Process Planning on the Shop Floor. This conversation builds on that discussion to explore how work instructions, manufacturing process plans, and other tools are different in a model-based world—aka, a model-based enterprise (MBE)—than they used to be with traditional, manual, paper processes.
Where the Rubber Meets the Road: The Shop Floor
Darrell starts by explaining the fundamentals used on the shop floor to build products: work instructions, which define how parts are assembled or manufactured, and process plans, which are work instructions plus routing details. Both documents used to be on paper and stored in binders—dozens of huge binders in each work area, filled with instructions—which made updating them a major process. “You made a change to the work instruction,” Darrell explains, “there was a whole army of people that had to go out to these books and replace the paper with the new work instruction. That was the way it worked back then.”
But today, all of the instructions are electronic. Darrell says, “Everything’s part-number based in creating the work instruction. But when a copy is made and it gets put out on the shop floor, it gets a work order number.” This makes it not only easier to update work instructions, but also easier to track which parts were built with which instructions. Though the underlying tracking code can get very complicated, because it has to take into account the idea that you’re changing the process at one single step, it allows for the idea that you may have work orders or instances out there in different steps before and after the instruction change.
The Evolution of MBE in Manufacturing
Fundamentally, Darrell says, “model-based” for manufacturing means the whole environment becomes dynamic. Model-based doesn’t mean only moving from 2D to 3D images or going from text instructions to video. It also means being able to spin the 3D representation and look at all angles. It means the engineers can set a virtual camera to zoom in and move around the part at particular points, so that the technician can see exactly the detail the engineer wants them to see. He considers the end goal to be a visual work instruction in 3D from start to finish, which will be something everyone can understand, regardless of language or experience level.
In addition to more clarity in work instructions, model-based in manufacturing also allows for tracking each unique instance of a part. This happens via a universal unique identifier (UUID), a piece of metadata assigned to each part. While the UUID isn’t for human view, it can be hugely valuable in the dynamic environment of manufacturing, because it allows for tracking locations, revisions, instances, problems, or discrepancies. Plus the existence of the UUID makes it possible for MES to collect transactional data on the shop floor, mine it, and provide valuable information to the business.
The UUID also improves maintenance, repair, overhaul (MRO) operations for as-built products, because traceability exists that tells you exactly how it was built. “That is going to be big-time helpful to the MRO world and the sustainment world,” Darrell says. “That’s always been the biggest problem with MRO, that they don’t know what they’ve got until they’ve got it in front of them and they start tearing it down.” He adds, “The digital thread that’s been talked about … a lot of it has been theory. We’re finally getting to the point where it’s matured enough, where we can see the value to it, and we can use the value of it now. And stitching it all together is the UUID. That is truly the digital thread.”
Learn More About Integration Strategies
The full podcast contains more discussion and details on a variety of topics, including why Darrell has become more convinced that different software platforms should be allowed to do what each does best, why he thinks it’s still going to take time before the industry has mature enough models for a digital thread, what the next conversations the industry will be having are (hint: AI and additive manufacturing), and more.
Check out the full conversation in Stay Sharp Episode 63: From Paper to Pixels: Transforming Manufacturing with Digital Work Instructions, as well as the trio’s initial conversation in Stay Sharp Episode 14: Decoding Complexity: Exploring MES and Process Planning on the Shop Floor. And be sure to join us each week for a new podcast.
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