It's the way you do it
It's the way you do it
Keywords: Lockheed Martin, Aerospace industry
A famous lyric from the 1980s explains, “...it's not what you do; it's the way that you do it”! If any company can evidence the value of adhering to this statement it is Lockheed Martin UK Ltd Integrated Systems, a major prime contractor, systems integration and programme management company for critical national infrastructure projects.
Over the last 3 years the company has fine tuned all of its internal and project management processes to create a leaner, meaner business. The results speak for themselves; actual savings of 5.7m GBP in 2003, ongoing savings totalling 4.5m GBP per annum and a contract win rate up from 30 to 100 per cent.
How often has someone offered to draw you a picture to explain how something works? Why did they do this? Well, probably because there is no better way to illustrate exactly what you are talking about. One of the most common diagrams used in business is an organisational chart, which shows the hierarchical structure of an operation. Increasingly, these diagrams are being evolved to show demarcation of responsibility for process specifics. This is exactly the approach that Lockheed Martin UK – Integrated Systems (LMUK-IS) took when it wanted to increase operational performance, increase capacity and reduce costs. Understanding how a process worked in detail was the only way they could make internal and external changes and get adoption from staff and customers for a new way of working based on mutual benefit.
LMUK-IS has developed a reputation as one of the leading prime contractors,programme management and systems integration vendors. It prides itself on whole system thinking and mapping its processes is part of a programme designed to transform Lockheed Martin from a function- based to a matrix-based organisation. The changes were also in line with a new business model that required the company to manage multiple large programmes that enable it to manage a range of diverse contracts like the Royal Mail's SmartStamp, the Soothsayer Land Electronic Warfare Programme for the British Army and the Merlin multi-mission helicopter and Warship Electronic Chart Display Information System (WECDIS) for the Royal Navy, rather than the larger, single programmes that it had been accustomed to.
There was also pressure both within the business and externally to achieve capability maturity model integration (CMMI) accreditation, a key defence industry quality measure developed by the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University in the United States and Industry, and sponsored by the US Department of Defence. Lockheed Martin also needed to support and maintain its ISO certifications.
In addition, as a prime contractor Lockheed Martin UK realised that in order to achieve its full potential and support the new business model it needed to fundamentally alter its entire business approach. LMUK-IS has created a track record for consistently delivering solutions for a range of complex projects on time, on budget and with minimum risk and in order to continue to deliver this with a new business model, a 3-year plan for a complete business transformation was agreed. The project covered all business areas, from business capture to systems engineering and finance; it also included corporate process management(CPM) and customer satisfaction assessment (CSA).
Senior level backing was a critical success factor, so sponsorship from the highest levels within the organisation was imperative. Under the sponsorship of the group managing director and with support from all stakeholders, a project team consisting of a team leader and 20 internal business area representatives was created. The team was led by Steve Bailey, Head of the Enterprise Excellence department.
One of the central elements of the plan was finding and implementing a software solution that would give the company the ability to review, amend and map processes visually. The company set out on an exhaustive review process testing all relevant software solutions. Steve Bailey, Manager of Enterprise Excellence explains, “Lockheed Martin prides itself as being a true learning organisation that strives to continually improve the way we do business, to deliver the best solutions for our customers while ensuring we inspire and retain the best people. Our transformation project was a huge challenge but it was also essential for continued business growth, so success was imperative.
“We realised that in order to achieve our aims and objectives we needed a software partner that would enable us to map and evolve our processes visually and collaboratively, and provide a way of measuring improvement.”
Nimbus' control-ES ticked all of the right boxes. It had a powerful mapping capability, an easy to use GUI (graphical user interface) front end that could be used by all employees with minimal IT literacy or training control-ES provided LMUK-IS with a common operational platform that not only enables organisations to refine processes but also enables the creation of score cards for monitoring the performance of each element of a process or the entire process itself. It also provides the ability to build regular reports showing how service delivery is improving as processes are changed.
While core functionality was important, simplicity and ease of use were two of the essential requirements for Lockheed Martin. Nimbus CEO Ian Gotts explains, “It was no good if it required extensive ongoing training or created a technological barrier to employee involvement in re-engineering their processes. If LMUK-IS was to successfully deliver on its transformation objectives the software must not require weeks or months of intensive training before it could be used.
“The changes needed to be evolutionary rather than revolutionary and start immediately.”
Lockheed Martin has ensured that they supported their use of the Business Management System, built with control-ES, with a programme of employee surveys,consultation and workshops where staff could provide continuous feedback. The company was able to get the project teams up and running as quickly as possible to collate and start to re-engineer processes based on employee feedback. Progress was also reviewed at monthly meetings attended by all LM UK Board members, including the Group MD. These meetings were critical in ensuring that the transformation project remained on track.
While the software has provided LMUK-IS with an invaluable tool, successful transformation is never just about software. Without adoption and ownership of the new ways of working by all employees the transformation would not have been effective. The introduction of scorecards, far from creating an environment where people feel they are being checked up on as might have been the case, has actually increased employee adoption and ownership of new processes.
“Nobody within the organisation wanted to fail and as a result the scorecards have actually been used to evidence how successful the process changes are. There is a sense that these changes have been driven by the employees themselves and there is, understandably, a huge sense of satisfaction when they see the results”, explains Lockheed Martin's Steve Bailey.
The whole purpose of the transformation programme was to get the entire organisation to adopt new processes because it made their jobs easier and also ensured performance levels were continuously improved. LMUK-IS wanted to build on the sense of pride its employees received from delivering the highest standard of service for its customers while making it easier for this to be achieved and recorded.
“The success of the transformation they have made speaks for itself”,explains Ian Gotts. “£10.6 million ($21m) in process improvement savings have been registered in the year to date. The hit rate on the Business Management System has climbed from an initial 400 transactions per month to more than 40,000 and there is greater employee awareness and ownership of the company's processes.”
Annual savings are anticipated to be in excess of £4.5m and the new business success rate is up from 30 to 100 per cent since the start of the transformation programme. This is the product of being able to show improved processes, transparent project management and increased efficiencies. The company now also has the flexibility to manage a greater number of diverse projects successfully. The average number of days to close corrective actions is down by 75 per cent as a result of the hundreds of minor process improvements identified and rectified by using control-ES.
Another tangible benefit claimed from LMUK-IS transformation project is that it can measure customer satisfaction and can identify successes and failures in specific parts of the process where amendments can be made.
Steve Bailey sums up the impact that the business transformation project had on the business “control-ES has been a true enabler for our organisation to achieve great things”. Its ease of use makes people want to work with new processes because they feel that they have a direct input into their evolution and the successes can be quantified.
“For a true learning organisation like Lockheed Martin, the technological power of control-ES has made it possible for us to make continual improvements in our business. If the technology had been difficult to use or complex we would never have got anyone to participate in the way we have.”
