Moving the Goal Posts? Organisational Transformation and Continuous Quality Improvement at BAe (Military Aircraft Division) Available to Purchase

This paper examines the changes currently occurring at a BAe plant. Recently they have seen a shift of emphasis on the production of military aircraft, away from their main customer — the British Ministry of Defence — towards export markets with greater emphasis also being put on subcontract work carried out for other BAe Divisions. Especially within the context of industrial recession, severely aggravated by international decline in military spending with the end of the cold war, and a perceived threat from Asian producers — some of whom are currently key customers — they have moved into introducing a range of new organisational and management strategies which could amount to an attempt at ‘Japanization’. Employees, especially at management level, talk of ‘initiative shock’ while attempting to cope with the current introduction of Activity Based Costing (ABC), Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI), JIT, the replacement of existing standards with ISO 9000, new computer systems and attempts at standardising procedures across the Division, Management and Supervisors being forced into applying for restructured jobs after taking psychometric tests, as well as recent redundancies which will mean a loss of about ten percent of staff.