Hello friends, let’s know something about the largest passenger airliner of the world, the Airbus A380 which nickname is Superjambo. It is a double-deck, wide-body, four-engine airliner manufactured by the European corporation Airbus, an EADS subsidiary.

Moments after emerging from the cockpit of the A380 after its successful first flight, chief test pilot Jacques Rosay said flying the world’s biggest passenger jet had been “like handling a bicycle.”

Airbus first began studies on a very large 500 seat airliner in the early 1990s. The European manufacturer saw developing a competitor and successor to the Boeing 747 as a strategic play to end Boeing’s dominance of the very large airliner market and round out Airbus’ product line-up.

Airbus began engineering development work on such an aircraft, then designated the A3XX, in June 1994. Airbus studied numerous design configurations for the A3XX and gave serious consideration to a single deck aircraft which would have seated 12 abreast and twin vertical tails. However Airbus settled upon a twin deck configuration, largely because of the significantly lighter structure required.

Key design aims include the ability to use existing airport infrastructure with little modifications to the airports, and direct operating costs per seat 15-20% less than those for the 747-400. With 49% more floor space and only 35% more seating than the previous largest aircraft, Airbus is ensuring wider seats and aisles for more passenger comfort. Using the most advanced technologies, the A380 is also designed to have 10-15% more range, lower fuel burn and emissions, and less noise.

The A380 features an advanced version of the Airbus common two crew cockpit, with pull-out keyboards for the pilots, extensive use of composite materials such as GLARE (an aluminium/glass fibre composite), and four 302 to 374kN (68,000 to 84,000lb) class Rolls-Royce Trent 900 or Engine Alliance (General Electric/Pratt & Whitney) GP7200 turbofans now under development.

Several A380 models are planned: the basic aircraft is the 555 seat A380-800 (launch customer Emirates). The 590 ton MTOW 10,410km (5620nm) A380-800F freighter will be able to carry a 150 tonne payload and is due to enter service in 2008 (launch customer FedEx). Potential future models will include the shortened, 480 seat A380-700, and the stretched, 656 seat, A380-900.

On receipt of the required 50th launch order commitment, the Airbus A3XX was renamed A380 and officially launched on December 19, 2000. In early 2001 the general configuration design was frozen, and metal cutting for the first A380 component occurred on January 23, 2002, at Nantes in France. In 2002 more than 6000 people were working on A380 development.

On January 18, 2005, the first Airbus A380 was officially revealed in a lavish ceremony, attended by 5000 invited guests including the French, German, British and Spanish president and prime ministers, representing the countries that invested heavily in the 10-year, €10 billion+ ($13 billion+) aircraft program, and the CEOs of the 14 A380 customers, who had placed firm orders for 149 aircraft by then.

The out of sequence A380 designation was chosen as the “8″ represents the cross-section of the twin decks. The first flight is scheduled for March 2005, and the entry into commercial service, with Singapore Airlines, is scheduled for March 2006.

Apart from the prime contractors in France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Spain, components for the A380 airframe are also manufactured by industral partners in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Finland, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States. A380 final assembly is taking place in Toulouse, France, with interior fitment in Hamburg, Germany. Major A380 assemblies are transported to Toulouse by ship, barge and road.

On July 24, 2000, Emirates became the first customer making a firm order commitment, followed by Air France, International Lease Finance Corporation (ILFC), Singapore Airlines, Qantas and Virgin Atlantic. Together these companies completed the 50 orders needed to launch the programme.

Later, the following companies also ordered the A380: FedEx (the launch customer for the A380-800F freighter), Qatar Airways, Lufthansa, Korean Air, Malaysia Airlines, Etihad Airways, Thai Airways and UPS.

Four prototypes will be used in a 2200 hours flight test programme lasting 15 months.

Airliners.net

View more pictures of Airbus A380 at Photo Gallery.

Six Sigma at many organizations simply means a measure of quality that strives for near perfection. Six Sigma is a disciplined, data-driven approach and methodology for eliminating defects (driving towards six standard deviations between the mean and the nearest specification limit) in any process — from manufacturing to transactional and from product to service.

The statistical representation of Six Sigma describes quantitatively how a process is performing. To achieve Six Sigma, a process must not produce more than 3.4 defects per million opportunities.

Different definitions about Six Sigma from around the web are as follows:

1. Six Sigma TerminologyA methodology that provides businesses with the tools to improve the capability of their business processes.
2. Process Improvement Glossary -A method or set of techniques. Six Sigma is generally used to indicate that a business process is well controlled.
3. Circuit City - In 2001 Six Sigma was introduced as an initiative within Circuit City’s annual report. [22] Six Sigma is applied to Circuit City’s operational side such as supply chain and distribution centers.
4. Tamworth Quality Services - This is a complete system of quality management originating in the USA, but now becoming popular in the UK.
5. Wikipedia - Six Sigma is a business management strategy, originally developed by Motorola, that today enjoys wide-spread application in many sectors of industry. Six Sigma seeks to identify and remove the causes of defects and errors in manufacturing and business processes.
6. Quality Glossary - A failure rate of 3.4 parts per million or 99.9997%
7. Glossary of terms and definitions - A set of practices first created by Motorola that attempts to systematically remove imperfections in manufacturing processes while improving quality and efficiency; also, a set of practices that specifies the mathematical precision of measurements.
8. eMJA Glossary - A systematic method for improving the operational performance of an organisation by eliminating variability and waste (“sigma” stands for standard deviation from the mean in a normal distribution).
9. Mayo Medical Laboratories - A statistical concept that represents the amount of variation present relative to customer requirements or specifications.
10. Industry Forum - A ‘measure of goodness’ involving the application of statistical methods to business processes to improve operating efficiency, reduce variation, avoid defects and reduce waste.
11. Pulse - It is a methodology to manage process variations that cause defects and to systematically work towards managing variation to eliminate those defects. The objective of Six Sigma is to deliver world-class performance, reliability, and value to the end customer.
12. Obis Omni - A quality management program to achieve “six sigma” levels of quality. Pioneered by Motorola in the mid-1980s, it aims to have the total number of failures in quality, or customer satisfaction, occur beyond the sixth sigma of likelihood in a normal distribution of customers.
13. Lean Manufacturing Glossary - Six Sigma is a statistical term that equates to 3.4 defects per one million opportunities. Typical manufacturers operate at around three sigma, or 67,000 defects per million. Six Sigma can achieve dramatic improvement in business performance through a precise understanding of customer requirements and the elimination of defects from existing processes, products and services. Key tenets of Six Sigma: Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control. To fully embrace Six Sigma, an organization must work intimately with all internal disciplines in addition to external suppliers and customers.
14. Qmi Solutions - A methodology and set of tools used to reduce quality problems to less than 3.4 defects per million or better.
15. ISSEL - A quality management and process improvement methodology particularly well-suited to process-intensive industries like manufacturing. Six Sigma measures a given process by its average performance and the standard deviation (or variation) of this performance, aiming to reduce the occurrence of defects in a given process to a level of “”Six Sigma”outside the norm; no more than 3.4 times per million.

1. Dust the screen regularly.Use a very, very soft, dry cloth to wipe the dust away.
2. Don’t touch the screen.LCD screens get dirty is from body oil on fingers.
3. Separate laptop keys from screen when closed.Place a thin, soft cloth between the keyboard and screen, keeping the screen from accumulating key marks.
4. Never use any cleaners that contain ammonia.You can either mix your own or purchased a premixed cleaning solution (usually mixed to 30% concentration) from a computer store. To apply the solution, use a very, very soft cloth, such as a piece of soft flannel or a synthetic microfiber material, and wipe the screen gently: too much pressure can cause the screen to crack or warp. You can use this cleaning method as often as necessary.
5. Clean gently.Also avoid paper towels, since they can easily scratch an LCD as they drag dirt and paper particles over the surface of the screen; that’s why it’s so important to use the softest cloth you can.