LPS: Leonardo’s smart factory

02 December 2022

"Leonardo method to increase efficiency", the title of a feature issued by ‘Il Sole 24 Ore’ focused on the Leonardo Production System (LPS), the programme aimed at optimising the efficiency and productivity of Leonardo's industrial sites through a continuous improvement approach to process and programme management, thus ensuring ever-increasing quality and safety.

Eighteen plants have been involved so far, with a further one more this year, with over 8,000 improvement projects and the involvement of more than 6,000 people and a high increase in productivity. These are the numbers and results of Leonardo Production System (LPS), the program born 2019 and relaunched in 2021 in its 4.0 version, following the digitization and sustainability guidelines. The programme has the aim of optimising the efficiency and productivity of Leonardo's industrial sites through a continuous improvement approach to process and programme management, thus ensuring ever-increasing quality and safety. The foundations of the LPS programme , explains Fabio Barsotti - Production Optimization and Program Management Director of Leonardo – lie in World Class Manufacturing (WCM), - “a structured and integrated production methodology aimed at continuously improving all production performances to guarantee product quality and satisfy customer expectations”. The new system introduced by the LPS, “has a triple objective: reducing waste in the current production process; involving all workers on the site, getting them to assume their responsibilities and making them an integral and active part of the process; and increasing safety in the workplace”, continues Barsotti.

The development of the LPS programme therefore required rethinking the production processes and optimising, not only the production processes but also the whole product life cycle: handling, stocks, controls, maintenance, supply chain management, through to the design and modelling of operational processes. With LPS, recalls Barsotti, “we’ve introduced a systemic and logical approach to improve production performance within Leonardo. In 2019 we identified the Pomigliano and Nola plants to act as pilot sites, and we have introduced, to date, the new production methodology at 18 Italian sites, with landmarks in excellence achieved - for example at the Anagni, Cascina Costa, Cameri, Venegono and Foggia sites, among others - with the launch of more than 8,000 improvement projects involving over 6,000 people. Our goal is to involve 19 sites during this year. In those sites where the program has been launched, there has been a high increase in productivity and substantial improvements in ergonomics and in quality and in logistic flows”. And a new piece has now been added to the roadmap outlined so far, focusing on the digitization of production processes.