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BAE SYSTEMS Deploys Scala for Total Plant Digital Signage
BAE Systems Platform Solutions' Fort Wayne, Indiana facility manufactures, services, and supports high-quality, high-reliability electronic aircraft engine and aerospace controls and cables for more than 300 customers in over 100 countries around the world. The plant is a world-class operation, winner of Industry Week magazine's "Best Plants in America" award in the year 2000 and the only five-time winner of the Indiana State Quality Award. "The Fort Wayne facility is truly unique in the breadth of innovation we employ to continuously improve productivity and quality," said Royce Binion, BAE Systems' operations program manager in Fort Wayne.
But the company faced an internal challenge. "As part of our annual performance assessment, we realized we needed to do a better job of getting real-time manufacturing and quality performance data out to our manufacturing floor, while at the same time disseminating corporate information to our production associates," Binion said. "These were two similar challenges that begged for a single solution." A call to Scala Software Solutions gave Binion the solution he needed to initiate the program.
Digital AV Division/Johnson Group, Inc, the Scala VAR in Indiana, was called in to evaluate the application and advise BAE Systems on an efficient solution. With the help of Tom Johnson of Digital AV, Binion and his team undertook the major project of developing a real-time digital signage network throughout BAE Systems' 250,000-square-foot plant. It included several centrally located design computers pushing a network of digital signs strategically located throughout the plant. Monitor locations included each manufacturing product team line for employee communication, and the main lobby for customer communication.
Through the use of "narrow casting," specific content is sent and displayed to each shop floor product team containing a monthly scorecard display, electronic ANDON signals, key customer performance metrics, and a "video of the week" that ties BAE Systems' products to end-user applications. Real-time weather and weather emergency updates also are displayed for employees. "We've coined this new communication medium, 'The inSight Channel,' to signify its internal plant-wide communications application," said Binion.
In addition to the narrow-casting content, the standard scripts can be overridden so that the digital displays serve as a communication medium for impromptu aisle meetings with employees. This allows the product team leader to discuss current issues and to conduct employee training via digital video -- right on the manufacturing floor. "Applying these displays in this manner is more practical and efficient than using a conference room," said Binion.
In the development products area, the displays are used in conjunction with a Web camera for "virtual" design reviews with the company's other U.S. engineering sites to review product designs and to provide feedback regarding producibility in real-time.
Scala training at Digital AV's offices helped the BAE Systems team with new programming concepts, including Web scraping and Web media capture, for the signage system. "We were able to bring in all sorts of streaming and static media of the end application of our products, allowing us to 'put a face' on the products we build," Binion said. "Scala software coupled with Digital AV's support has provided us with a truly world-class communication system for our employees."
Johnson sums it up: "This application is like many of the new industrial digital signage applications coming up. Big investments in quality control and manufacturing initiatives make the digital signage integration the icing on the muffin." Sounds good to us.
