WHAT HAS TO TRAVEL WITH A PRODUCT WHEN IT CHANGES BUILDINGS.
Libra Industries, Dayton, Ohio
The products that are easiest to move are the ones nobody worries about. They ship every week, the design has settled, and the customers are happy. That is also why they need to be moved carefully. A customer notices very quickly when a steady product stops being steady.
A lot of defense, aerospace, and robotics companies around Dayton are in this position right now. New programs are coming in and need floor space, people, and test time. The mature product that pays the bills is sitting in the space the new program wants, built by the people who know the most about how to bring a new product up. Moving the mature line out is often the right call. Doing it without a hiccup on the customer side takes more planning than most people expect.
What has to travel with it
The documentation, and the gap behind it. Drawings, the BOM, and work instructions are the easy part. The hard part is the distance between what is written and what people actually do. Every line that has run for years has drifted from its paperwork in small ways that work.
Fixtures and tooling. Each one gets moved, copied or rebuilt. Moving means a gap in production at the original site. Copying means a second set to prove out. Having tool and die on our campus helps here, because we can rebuild a fixture from a worn original without waiting in someone else’s queue.
Test equipment and software. This is often the hardest piece. Test stations on mature lines are frequently old, the software may run on a computer nobody wants to touch, and the calibration history matters. Decide early whether the test equipment moves, gets duplicated, or gets rebuilt.
What the bench knows. The adjustment that isn’t in the instructions. The order fasteners actually get torqued in. The cable that has to route a certain way or it chafes six months into service. None of this is written down, and all of it matters.
Inventory and supplier commitments. Open purchase orders, stock on hand, work in process, and any supplier who has only ever shipped to your dock.
Acceptance history. What the end customer has accepted before, including deviations granted years ago that are now simply how the product is built.
How to run the transfer
- Walk the line with the people who build it. Before writing anything new, watch the build from start to finish with the operators, and record it on video if the customer allows.
- Freeze the configuration. Batch engineering changes until the transfer is done. A change in the middle of a transfer means proving out two things at once.
- Build a bank of finished units. Enough stock to cover the gap between the last unit at the old site and steady output at the new one, with some margin.
- Build in parallel. First article at the new site, compared directly against units from the original line, with test data from both.
- Cut over in stages. By configuration or by customer, rather than all at once.
- Keep the original team reachable. For a few weeks after cutover, the people who used to build it are the fastest answer to the questions the paperwork can’t answer.
When copy exact is worth it
Some customers, especially in semiconductor equipment and defense, need the new line to match the old one exactly: same process steps, same equipment settings, same test limits, so the qualification carries over. We work to a copy exact methodology in Dayton when a program needs it. It costs more and takes longer, and not every product needs it. Most transfers do well by deciding which characteristics truly have to be identical and which only have to meet the drawing.
What your customers should notice
Nothing. That is the measure. Before the transfer starts, agree on the numbers both sides will watch: on-time delivery, first-pass yield at test, and field returns. Track them for the last few months at the old site and the first few at the new one. If they hold, the transfer worked.
If you are thinking about moving a steady product line to make room for something new, talk to us before you set a date. We would rather help plan the transfer than inherit one that was rushed.
Send an email to sales@libraind.com.
