Delivering engineering excellence

By Niranjan Mudholkar,

Added 30 June 2018

There is a great push from the Indian government to position the country as a low cost, high quality aerospace manufacturing hub and accelerate R&D services through new policy initiatives, says Steve Gerber, Sr. Vice President, Strategic Accounts, QuEST Global

Crompton Greaves's built-in kitchen appliance manufacturing unit commences operations

TVS SCS bags new business contract from VE Commercial Vehicles

Volkswagen India announces its Summer Car Care Campaign

Tell us about the technical capabilities of the aerospace vertical. What are some of its key engineering achievements?
With expertise across the aerospace product life cycle, QuEST is playing a key role in pioneering innovation in aerospace that makes aircrafts safer, faster, more reliable and enjoyable. As a long-term, strategic partner to our customers, we're helping our clients seamlessly transition to digital manufacturing. We enable them to emerge as leaders in the market by accelerating smart product introduction by streamlining design, manufacturing, supply chain, and using advanced technology like Model Based Development (MBD) to reduce time to market.
We are leveraging other digital technologies like augmented reality and IoT based inventory tracking to maximize uptime with aftermarket services. We have developed lean engineering services that evaluate manufacturing non-conformance in real-time, thereby enabling faster production lines. Our process capability has brought reduction of nonconformance disposition lead-time from weeks to hours. By deploying analytics driven root cause identification tools, we have also been able to reduce the generation of non-conformances as well.
The recognition we have amassed from the industry and customers is a testament to our commitment to excellence, quality and innovation in this sector. QuEST has been:
Recognized by HfS for excellence in providing embedded product engineering services.
Positioned in Winner's Circle in HfS Aerospace Engineering Services Blueprint.
Recognized as a leader amongst Global Product Engineering Services in Zinnov Zones 2017.
Recognized by International Association for Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP) in 2016 as top company for Awards & Certifications and Employee Growth in Leader Size Group.

What are some of the key challenging projects successfully executed by the aerospace vertical in the recent times?
Non- Conformance Disposition Center of Excellence - A lean application of an engineering process, QuEST dispositions 1000's/month in customer non-conformances within hours of receipt. This service was developed to support aero structures, Aero Systems and Aero Engines. Average cycle times have been reduced from a couple of weeks to a couple of hours with a commensurate reduction in cost.
On time Delivery - Our 24X7 support for delivery assurance has enabled on time shipment of our customer's products by reducing delays in supply chain and the production line by 40 percent.
Reduce Redundancy - Our customers expected cycle time reduction by 50 percent with automation. QuEST helped the customer in automating tool path generation for a family of parts that resulted in: Process standardization, Cycle time reduction by 50 percent - 70 percent and defect reduction by 85 percent.
Redesign of Jet-pipe to improve life - An OEM experienced high rate of jet pipe cracks on a military jet aero engine resulting in low MTBF and increased downtime. QuEST redesign of the component resulted in 5X improvement in the expected life, reduced jet pipe weight and cost reduction of 35 percent.
Model Based Enterprise - We are working closely with our customers to develop the systems and technologies required to connect the master CAD model to the various manufacturing and supply chain elements to improve first time quality, significantly reduce time to market and enhance production readiness.