Operations
We are organized into manufacturing business units where dedicated cross-functional teams support our customers’ product acquisition and manufacturing requirements. Each business unit is managed by a Business Unit Manager, supported with its own Contract Administrator for customer service and order administration, and followed by a cross-functional team typically consisting of a Production Planner/Buyer, Production Supervisor, and Design (mechanical, software, electrical), Manufacturing, and Quality Engineers. Machinery and personnel are dedicated to each business unit for prototyping, tooling and production.
Our information technology environment facilitates control over product quality, delivery times, and cost effectiveness. An application called TeamMate1 provides plant wide electronic document control and distribution. This ensures the correct product design and manufacturing work instructions are up to date and immediately available to the production area upon approval. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software aids with reduction of “lead times” and optimization of “delivery schedules”. We are advancing beyond standard Material Requirements Planning (MRP) in 2007. Our manufacturing is now facilitated by an ERP application called “Easy Lean™/DBR Software”2. Easy Lean aides in optimizing our production throughput based on the “Theory of Constraints”. In essence, we can now optimize throughput by identifying and eliminating bottlenecks and balancing our overall production process in a way that will provide for the greatest manufacturing throughput and efficiency. Additionally, our production is organized into “work cells” where a team of employees produce finished items which are then passed on to the next cell in the production process. These cells allow us to achieve greater efficiency, quality, and worker satisfaction. Our production process is capable of “single piece” or “optimum batch flow”.
In conjunction with optimizing our throughput and efficiencies, we have an established infrastructure for sustaining and continuously improving our quality while jointly reducing product cost and overhead. Our Quality Department has a “Black Belt” continuous improvement specialist on staff and each of our business units have an established “Green Belt” quality engineer.
HARCO retains certain manufacturing processes and resources in house in order to optimize manufacturing responsiveness, be supportive of innovative and custom solutions and take advantage of economies of scale where they exist. Next is a sample of our more specialized resources:
- Metal and ceramic laser machining
- 2D matrix marking
- Real-time x-ray allowing for single piece flow
- Semi-automated fabrication on thermocouple caps and junctions
- Electro-mechanical forming of metal as a method of joining components
- Glass sealing capabilities
- Electronic discharge machine
- CNC bending of thermocouples and other products (.045 dia. Up to .312 dia.)
- Completely automated testing of air data sensors in areas such as wind tunnel, heater calibration, ATP testing.
- Patented bonding process for over-molding connectors to electrical cables.
- In-house mold making and prototype capabilities.
- TeamMate is a product of Bentley Systems, Incorporated
- Easy Lean™/DBR Software is a product of Infor Global Solutions