Realize LIVE: How GE Aerospace achieves seamless connectivity across the globe

Customer conversations take the center stage at Realize LIVE; the largest digital transformation conference designed for our community of Siemens Software users across the globe.

We at Siemens eagerly look forward to these meaningful discussions, as they provide invaluable insights.

Today, at Realize LIVE Americas in Las Vegas, our marketing manager, Kelly Gallagher had the opportunity to catch up with Leah Kight, Technical Product Manager from GE Aerospace as she delved into the following topics:

• Trends in the aerospace industry
• Modern connectivity solutions
• Advantages that GE Aerospace achieves using Siemens software

GE Aerospace leverages the integration of Siemens Teamcenter, NX, and Shop floor Connect to establish a robust digital thread. They meet the biggest business driver for them, which is compliance, ensuring they fulfil regulatory requirements for accountability and traceability. How do they achieve this? Watch the video to learn more.

Here is the transcript from the interview with Leah Kight from G2 Aerospace at Realize LIVE Americas 2024:

Kelly: What has been the most impactful impression for you here?

Leah: The opening session, just to hear how Siemens is partnering with a bunch of companies to do AI, metaverse, and actually doing something with those buzzwords and bringing in the manufacturing side of it, and I can't wait to see how it transfers to what we want to do at GE aerospace.

Kelly: You also had a session about replacing a DNC legacy system with Siemens technology, it was so well attended. Can you share a little more about what you shared in your presentation?

Leah: Yes. At GE aerospace, we have a bunch of instances of PDM (Product Data Management) and DNC (Distributed Numerical Control). My team came together and tried to figure out how do we implement this new tool across GE worldwide. So, it came with a lot of challenges, and during the presentation, I spoke about the three focus points:

Standardization: You want to make sure that you have standard requirements across all your sites.
Connectivity: How do we connect the machines together? As that was a huge pain point for us.
Implementation: Making sure the implementation plan can be scaled across each site.
And our new strategy for deploying Shop Floor Connect. We are no longer focusing on let's complete the entire shop; let's do a priority line and let that priority line be that change agent so that when they get done and they say, "Yes, we love what Shop Floor Connect is doing," they are going to the other operators, the process engineers, and becoming our champions.

Kelly: How do you see the manufacturing technologies in the aerospace industry changing our manufacturing landscape as we know it today?

Leah: At GE aerospace, we are primarily focusing on how we stay in the game, in the competition of what’s going on, especially digital transformation, us becoming a single company, GE aerospace. We keep thinking about what we are doing for AI, automation, and that is truly important for us.
But then also, what do we do with this data that we have so it becomes data-driven decisional. How do we make decisions with our data and let's take a step forward, continuous improvement.

Kelly: How does Siemens technology help you improve compliance for GE aerospace?

Leah: I would say right now with Shop Floor Connect, the biggest business driver is compliance, so making sure that we meet those regulatory requirements for accountability, accessibility, traceability, auditing, because once you start bringing in the Siemens Teamcenter, NX, and Shop Floor Connect, you have that digital thread that says this is where we start and quickly go in and see where are those changes? What were those changes? Who made those changes?
And we can go into the quality; it increases our quality levels, of course, but then also CMMC, making sure that we are compliant from a CMC standpoint. I think Siemens is already working on that foundation of how we make sure we are secured and how do we make sure logging is in place.

Kelly: Lastly, because we are in Las Vegas here at Realize LIVE, Leah if you had one day to yourself where could we find you in Vegas?

Leah: Probably shopping in the morning. Eating. I want chicken and waffles or shrimp and grits for breakfast, of course. And then I love the Beatles show for some reason. Last night I got to see Michael Jackson, and it still did not beat the Beatles show, so that’s where you are going to see me. And then probably swimming. Love it. At the beach.

We had a great conversation with Leah Kight from GE Aerospace. Siemens customers, like her, are the heartbeat of Realize LIVE, where you can immerse yourself in peer-to-peer learning, product demos, networking, and celebration across the Siemens Software community. Stay tuned and follow along for more excitement with the digital manufacturing team at Realize LIVE Americas.