On safety, on quality, on time and on cost: 48 months of the Leonardo Production System at the Anagni site

The Anagni site specialises in the production of rotor blades in composite material for all of Leonardo's helicopters. The Leonardo Production System (LPS), established in 2019, has now become an indispensable management model for increasing safety at work, product quality and plant efficiency.

“On safety, on time and on cost”: according to Oreste Cafasso, Head of the Centre of Excellence for Blades & Composite Rotor Heads for the Anagni and Yeovil sites, these are the main objectives of the LPS programme, achieved through the reduction of waste present in the processes and the active involvement and accountability of collaborators, thereby increasing the safety standards and the environmental sustainability of the product. The introduction of a production performance management model has led to a critical rethinking of the way of working and finding solutions on a day-to-day basis, involving the entire organisation of the site.

The numbers of the change brought about by LPS are highlighted by Daniele Vincenzo Pagano, Head of Continuous Improvement, "In four years, and thanks to the active participation of about 70% of the organisation, 50 workspaces have been launched that have involved all areas of the plant and have generated over 400 projects and 260 improvement proposals."

The areas for improvement concerned all the site's activities, from the manual and automatic processing of the pre-impregnated materials to the polymerisation processes, through the chemical/mechanical treatments, to finally the mechanical processing of the composite. The design covered a wide range of activities, from a single operation to the reorganisation of entire work areas and logistic processes. "The LPS programme is comprised of ten technical pillars whose foundations are people and knowledge", explains Pagano, "and in this context the Focused Improvement pillar aims to maximise the involvement of all company resources, through the use of the tools made available by the LPS methodology, seeking the optimal combination of project quality and quantity, implementation times and related savings."

The active participation of people is the real cornerstone of the Leonardo Production System. Since its launch, it has involved over 230 people at the site, so that everyone feels part of and responsible for the change. “The LPS programme’s induction has allowed me to participate in the evolution of my workstation, making it safer and more efficient,” notes Francesco Costantini, a Clean Room Special Processes Operator.

With the results obtained from the LPS programme thus far, we look to the future. The new objective of LPS in Anagni is to increase the reliability of the machines on the production lines. "We will bring a planned maintenance system up to speed," explains Emanuele Di Girolamo, Production Plant Maintenance Manager, "and then move on to more high-profile maintenance models, such as condition-based maintenance (CBM) and predictive maintenance, which are now a goal within reach.” The use of Artificial Intelligence allows for data-driven decision-making processes: site data is integrated to support the analysis and subsequent definition of any malfunctions, "with a progressive reduction in maintenance costs thanks to the increase in skills and the involvement of our resources," concludes Di Girolamo.