Rol ls-Royce Case Study

© 2002 XEROX CORPORATION. All rights reserved. XEROX® and The Document Company® are registered trademarks of XEROX CORPORATION. All other brand names are trademarks of their respective owners. 610P715580 12/02 36 USC 220506

Rolls-Royce Allison

Case Study

“We’ve had a much lower instance of unhappy customers, and that definitelyimpacts our image with the customer.”Claudia Ventura-Abbott, Rolls Royce Allison’s Director of Technical Publications

The ResultsKnocking 42 days off the waiting period hasmade a significant difference to the customers.Redundant and cumbersome print processsteps and unnecessary expenditures have been eliminated. Printing and distribution areaccomplished faster and with much greaterease and accuracy than ever before. In additionto improved fulfillment capabilities, Rolls-Royce is also seeing savings of about $67,000a year with the new process.

A win-win situation.Everyone involved in this solution is benefiting,especially Rolls-Royce customers and theTechnical Publications staff. Customers aregetting the documentation they desperatelyneed, when they need it. Satisfaction withRolls-Royce, confidence in its products and the desire to remain customers have all risenproportionately. Clearly this high customer satisfaction, coupled with increased produc-tivity and effectiveness, cost savings, and anability to focus on their core business, givesRolls-Royce a solid competitive advantage.

Ventura-Abbott views it as a win-win situation:“We’ve had a much lower instance of unhappycustomers, and that definitely impacts ourimage with the customer. We can concentrateon the things that we’re best at—producing themaintenance data and writing it—and let Xeroxworry about distributing it.”

Perhaps Tom Hartmann sums it up best whenhe says, “We’ve got better equipment and abetter process, at a great price.” And that’s gotthis world-class company flying high!

Real People. Real World Solutions.

“It wasn’t fast printers that did the trick for us. We already had fast printers … it was Xerox’swillingness to look at the process and propose new ways of getting the manuals put together and out to customers.”Tom Hartmann, Director of Business Development at Rolls-Royce Allison

The Challenge:• Reduce time required to create, publish and distribute

critical technical maintenance manuals.

• Improve customer satisfaction and confidence.

• Free the technical documentation people to write and produce critical maintenance data.

The Solution:• Just-in-time product documentation and enterprise

content management, using Web-based documentsubmissions and preview, print on demand, and digital storage.

The Results:• Faster document creation, production and distribution.

• Increased customer satisfaction.

• Reduced order fulfillment cycle time from 45 days to three days.

• Savings of $67,000 a year with the new process.For more information on the advanced solutions and services Xerox can provide, call 1-800-ASK-XEROX or visit www.xerox.com/globalservices today.

1

Rol ls-Royce Case Study

Real People. Real World Solutions.

Client ProfileIf you’ve ever flown in a Boeing 777, listened to a helicopter traffic report or watched anemergency medical rescue, then you’veprobably been exposed to aircraft enginesproduced by Rolls-Royce Allison in Indianapolis,Indiana. A wholly owned subsidiary of the UK’sRolls-Royce PLC, Rolls-Royce Allison (formerlyknown as the Allison Engine Company) hasbeen part of this world-leading manufacturer ofaircraft engines since 1995.

A company dedicated to integrity, reliability andinnovation, today’s Rolls-Royce powers moreaircraft types than any other aircraft enginemanufacturer. In addition to the Boeing 777and helicopters, Rolls-Royce also suppliesengines for military, commercial and privateaircraft around the world. With over 40,000employees serving customers in 135 countries,Rolls-Royce’s sales are in excess of $6.5 billionUS, or £4 billion.

The ChallengeGiven the company’s impressive credentials, it’s hard to imagine that Rolls-Royce Allison’sprocesses for creating, producing and distrib-uting critical product documentation, such asmaintenance manuals, were creating unforeseencosts to the business. Competitive advantage,productivity, customer satisfaction and goodwillsuffered. In addition, delays in engine or partsdelivery cost Rolls-Royce Allison a hefty $1million a day.

As Claudia Ventura-Abbott, Rolls-Royce Allison’sDirector of Technical Publications, explains,“The documents that come out of our organi-zation are maintenance manuals, service bulletins, illustrated parts catalogs, and enginemaintenance manuals. Three years ago we hadsome significant problems with the distributionof our technical publications … Daily phonecalls from irate customers are never good, andthe distribution of technical maintenance datais incredibly important. That’s what keeps airplanes flying. I think our customers thought,‘If these guys can’t get the easy stuff right,what’s my engine doing? What about the hardstuff?’ So it’s a direct reflection on us, whetheror not we get these documents right.”

Existing production process: too long, too late.The problems Ventura-Abbott mentions includedan extremely long lead time. According to TomHartmann, Director of Business Development

at Rolls-Royce Allison, “When we first lookedat our processes, we found that it took about45 days to deliver manuals to our customerfrom the day of receipt. Waiting 45 days for a printed document was not meeting our customer’s expectation.”

Here’s how it worked: A customer would requestdocumentation. The Technical Publications staffwould seek out existing electronic files andhard-copy documents, many of which wereoutdated and difficult to locate. Version controlwas nonexistent. Once electronic files and hard-copy documents were located, authors wouldreview, edit and revise them as needed. Therewas no common viewing mechanism in place.

The next step was to send the electronic file and/or hard-copy attachments to the Xerox in-house print facility, managed by Xerox,for print and distribution. As Hartmann tells it,“One of the big issues we had for a long timewas submission of documents into the print

center. It was a paper-based process; bulky,time-consuming and not satisfying ourinternal customers.”

Merging electronic and hard-copy submissionsinto one document was a drawn-out endeavor.There were multiple drivers and multiple printers.It was also difficult to work these documentsinto the print schedule along with general plant duplicating jobs. A slow, manual assemblyprocess and costly shipping and distributionfurther contributed to customer dissatisfaction.In short, a loss of credibility for Rolls-Royce.

Looking at things in a new way:two key goals.Rolls-Royce Allison was looking for anenterprise-wide solution that would accomplishtwo key goals:

Improve productivity by reducing theamount of time required to create, publish and distribute manuals.

Improve customer satisfaction and confidence.

Additionally, they needed a solution that wouldfree the technical documentation people to dowhat they do best, which is writing and producing the maintenance data so critical toRolls-Royce’s success. Xerox already had asolid relationship with Rolls-Royce Allison andan in-depth understanding of their business.That relationship, coupled with the fact thatRolls-Royce Allison was open to tryingadvanced solutions, worked in everyone’sfavor. According to Hartmann, “We broughtXerox in and they took a holistic approach to it,where the entire system was important to them.”

The SolutionXerox suggested a cutting-edge, product-to-market document solution. The pilot, implementedat the Indianapolis site, relies on a Web-baseddocument submissions system. Here’s how itworks: an author pulls up a document, or several documents, at his or her workstation,from anywhere in the enterprise. Using XeroxDocuments Xpress software, the author builds a single digital document from the original documents.

The Documents Xpress software enables theauthor to choose paper size, binding, numberof copies, where to save the file and so on.Documents Xpress then converts the file toPDF or PostScript format for print on demandand digital storage. It is then sent directly fromthe workstation to a central repository (SQLServer). If the author chooses to save the fileafter printing, it can be stored in the customer’sarchive database.

The Internet provides a common system interface across all client platforms so accessis easy throughout the enterprise. “It’s truly aWeb-based environment that allows us to submit the job and preview the job, all electron-ically, before we ever commit it to a piece ofpaper,” says Hartmann.

Once the job is submitted, the author’s work isdone and Xerox takes over. The process iscompletely automated—no manual interventionis required. A common print driver supportsenterprise-wide output. Depending on thedocument, Xerox handles the output on theXerox DocuTech® 6135 production publisher or the Xerox Document Centre® 230 and then distributes documents as directed. But Hartmannbelieves the solution’s success is based onmore than equipment, “… it wasn’t fast printersthat did the trick for us. We already had fastprinters … it was [Xerox’s] willingness to look atthe process and propose new ways of getting themanuals put together and out to customers.”

Cutting time, costs and steps.Just about every benefit resulting from thissolution meets the two goals stated at the outset: faster document production and distribution with increased customersatisfaction. One of the most dramatic changesis the reduction in lead times. The original 45-day lead time was slashed to only three days.

“We’ve got betterequipment and a better process,at a great price.”Tom Hartmann, Director of Business Development at Rolls-Royce Allison

2