For more than thirty years, Pacoima, Calif.-based Airflow Research Heads, Inc. (AFR) has been defining technology leadership in cylinder head manu-facturing and flow dynamics. AFR, in fact, pioneered the CNC (Computerized Numerical Control) porting of Small block Chevy and Ford heads as well as big block Chevy heads. (“Porting” opens up, re-configures and re-surfaces the ports of cylinder heads to enable engines to breathe easier and more efficiently and therefore produce more power.) The company also pioneered the recent introduction of high performance Gen-2 LS1 aftermarket heads. AFR manu-factures the cylinder heads from raw aluminum castings, performs the CNC porting and assembles the finished heads for sale to the general public and a variety of stocking distributors throughout the U.S.
The DNC interface tracks the actual time used to complete the machining cycle and also provides operational results, such as the quantity completed, scrap or repair and further outside processing required. Additionally, it sends an e-mail notification to the production department for anything other than a successfully completed operation so that further action can be taken in a timely manner to correct any deficiencies.
AFR also set up the stock code files and the DNC work centers to enable the transfer of inventory directly to the individual jobs as it is consumed during the manufacturing cycle. This provides complete inventory accountability for each work order without having to use human intervention. During one of the early CNC machining operations, valve guides and seats are installed into the heads as part of the normal manufacturing cycle. The system automatically transfers these items out of stock and assigns them against the associated work order as soon as the heads are scanned through the operation. The same holds true for all the remaining components, such as valves, springs, guide plates, etc., which are transferred against the job as they are scanned into the shipping department work center at the completion of all operations. By automating the transferring of inventory stock transactions for the 5,000 sets of cylinder heads normally produced in a year, the possibility of manually produced errors is eliminated.
Syspro CRM is used exclusively by the AFR sales department personnel for all customer transactions. Direct links to the Syspro WIP Query and Sales Order Query screens enable the sales personnel to track the actual progress of jobs through the shop, allowing them to directly answer customers’ delivery questions while talking with them on the phone.
How has Syspro software enhanced the operational efficiency at AFR? Andersen summarizes: “Thanks to the Syspro software, we now have measurements on how good we are…We never had the visibility before.”
“Thanks to the Syspro software, we now have measurements on how good we are…We never had the visibility before.”
— Carl Anderson GM, Airflow Research
When Carl Andersen joined AFR as general manager in 2003, he saw the company’s accounting package couldn’t track product flow through the shop. It offered limited bills of material and no shop routing. Drawing on his MRPII background, Andersen wanted a full ERP solution with a product configurator and advanced planning and scheduling. “A production schedule is good only until it’s been run,” he says. “Then everything immediately changes.”
After evaluating several ERP vendors and speaking with existing users, Andersen chose Syspro: a twelve-user license covering accounting and MRP, plus Advanced Planning and Scheduling, the Product Configurator and a five-user CRM license.
AFR loaded its entire catalog into the Product Configurator, which the sales team now uses for every order. It lets staff customize heads to each customer’s performance requirements, then generates the sales documentation, a complete bill of material and a bar-coded work order with shop routing for each set of heads.
On the shop floor, terminals at every CNC work center connect to the central server through a DNC interface built by Syspro USA. Each head gets a durable bar-code label at the start of production and is scanned in and out of every operation, giving AFR real-time work-in-progress tracking through APS. Tracking parts directly instead of using shop travelers eliminated lost paperwork entirely. The DNC interface also checks AFR’s CNC programming library at every scan, loading the correct program automatically to prevent machine crashes and scrapped parts.
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