Toward effective depot transformation: leveraging simulation to enhance transition planning

The goal of depot transformation is variability elimination over the production life-cycle. Forced to "ride the bike while we fix it," the depot must transform the current batch and queue production style to a lean, cellular paradigm. Major challenges include transforming the infrastructure, work force, facilities, and supply chain. Further, unlike manufacturing production where the "work content" in a production item has been engineered from the ground up, work content for a repair item is highly variable and creates a ripple effect across the production system. This paper describes depot-MRO transformation according to a series of carefully designed transitions that mitigate variability and provide the modeling needs and requirements that, if met, would enable effective modeling and analysis of MRO production scenarios, providing engineers with a transformation design assistant [TDA] for designing and testing production control strategies. TDA components are currently employed at OC-ALC, NASA-KSC, and within UH-60 MRO programs.