The Cutting Edge: Computing / Technology / Innovation : Downsizing the Machine : Northrop Latest to Ditch Mainframe Computing
Times are hard in the aerospace business, hard enough that at Northrop Grumman Corp.’s venerable manufacturing facility in Hawthorne, management has taken a radical step. It decided to ditch the big iron.
That’s not to say the plant will stop being the sole manufacturer of fuselages for Boeing 747 jets. The “big iron” being shed is a 20-year-old IBM mainframe computer, which the fuselage factory will leave for use by other Northrop operations.
In its place, the Hawthorne plant has adopted a state-of-the-art system of smaller, networked computers that will do everything the old machine did and much more, all for a fraction of the cost of living with the mainframe.
Northrop is far from unique in the move away from mainframes. Much to the dismay of International Business Machines Corp., Amdahl and other “big iron” providers, the aerospace giant is joining waves of American companies that are trading in their old mainframes for webs of smaller computers in a “downsizing” process almost as pronounced as the corporate downsizing that has slashed employment at many big companies coast to coast.
“Companies are realizing the kind of cost savings and flexibility they can get with these ‘client-server’ systems,” said Nancy Stewart, a computer industry analyst with Dataquest Inc., a San Jose market research firm. “That’s certainly where we see the growth in the computer systems market.”
At Northrop, it all started as a result of slumping demand throughout the aerospace and defense industries, coupled with increased worldwide competition in the fuselage business, which combined to step up the pressure for greater efficiency at the Hawthorne facility.
Late in 1992, Northrop’s manager of business systems, Joseph Dugan, began putting together a plan for a new computer system that would help the company cut costs and modernize its manufacturing process.
“We wanted to cut data-processing costs by two-thirds, and we knew we had to go to a client-server solution,” Dugan said. “It just wasn’t clear at the time that the systems could handle a manufacturing environment of this size.”
The magnitude of Northrop’s Hawthorne operation is daunting. There are 256,133 parts in a single Boeing 747 fuselage, if you count every nut and bolt. Each fuselage must be assembled perfectly; Boeing won’t even accept one if the polished surface of the outer aluminum skin is so much as scratched.
Yet the lure of smaller computing systems was so great that Northop’s planners persisted. Moving away from mainframes, they knew, could save the company the enormous effort and expense of developing and maintaining the vastly complex software applications that run on mainframe computers.
It can easily cost hundreds of thousands of dollars every year to write and periodically upgrade mainframe software. As a result, it was clear that the new system Northrop envisioned, once installed, would pay for itself in a few months just from these savings. (Northrop won’t say what the new system cost, however.)
That’s why Dugan and his colleagues made it a top priority of their new system that it would run on off-the-shelf software. The computers on desktops throughout the facility could be based on any one of several operating systems, including Microsoft Windows and Apple Macintosh.
But the foundation of the system tying the computers together was to be a powerful operating environment known as Unix. Originally used primarily in scientific environments, Unix software applications were powerful but arcane. In recent years, however, a growing number of user-friendly software application packages have started to win Unix broader use in business settings.
The Northrop system is anchored by eight Hewlett-Packard servers--computers the size of a small refrigerator, with huge data-storage capacities. The servers are networked to clients--personal computers such as Macintoshes and other personal computers, including Hewlett-Packard Unix workstations and low-cost Unix X-stations. All in all, the system will serve hundreds of users.
The many different sorts of computers on the system can work together through the Unix operating system, Dugan said, which makes it possible for the smaller computers to carry out mainframe-scale tasks. Also, Unix is an “open” system, meaning Unix is available from a number of different software companies.
As it turns out, the smaller computers were up to the mainframe’s tasks and then some. Less than 18 months after planning started, it has become clear that the system can not only handle the workload, but has enabled the Hawthorne division to redefine almost every aspect of its business, from back office financial reporting to inventory management to the factory floor.
For example, in the old days, various kinds of data existed separately, and couldn’t be easily consolidated into revealing reports. The new system, Northop says, brings together all this data. Thus, for the first time, top managers can get a complete picture of every aspect of operations, from the status of materials coming from a supplier, to Northrop’s own factory floor, until Boeing takes delivery of the products.
“One of the advantages of this architecture is that it gives us the ability to use an integrated set of statistics, graphics, and engineering software application tools that is probably 10 times as powerful as what we were coming from,” Dugan said. Just one example: under the old, mainframe-based system, all of the engineering drawings and schematics--and there are thousands--were on paper.
All the old drawings have been scanned into the new system, and digitized. Now, the Northrop engineers can find any drawing in seconds, said Ron Bourassa, project manager for manufacturing engineering systems. Viewing the drawings on the high-resolution color monitors, the engineers can zoom in and out to any part of the drawing on their screens without having to page through a lot of paper. Any changes they make are instantly recorded.
“It’s already made a profound difference in our business,” said Judy Jurdans, manager of general accounting and cash management. The system has permitted staffers to produce much more reliable financial information, she said, and in much less time than under the old procedures.
* CASE STUDY: Santa Barbara firm embraces client-server computing. D6
Moving from Mainframes
Although large mainframe computers are still important in business, many companies are finding that smaller computers linked in client-server networks are more flexible and efficient. As a result, worldwide mainframe sales have been slipping, while shipments of server units, which support client computers, have soared:
MAINFRAME UNIT SALES
1985: 11,000 1986: 11,260 1987: 11,630 1988: 13,100 1989: 14,690 1990: 15.130 1991: 13,565 1992: 9,411 1993*: 8,500 1994**: 8,700
SERVER UNIT SALES
1987: 253,000 1988: 229,800 1989: 309,000 1990: 421,500 1991: 573,900 1992: 1,032,600 1993**: 1,374,500 1994**: 1,528,800
* Preliminary
** Forecast
Source: DataQuest
Researched by ADAM S. BAUMAN / Los Angeles Times
