Taking the flight path to improvement

Using lean principles and innovative technology, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co. strives to better its manufacturing processes by reducing cost, waste, and assembly time.

The dynamics of the aerospace industry have changed dramatically in the last decade, prompting many companies such as Lockheed Martin to adopt new philosophies, processes, and methodologies. Such changes have challenged companies to make dramatic rather than incremental improvements to remain competitive. Through a combination of lean manufacturing and new technology, Lockheed Martin has met some of those challenges.

According to Larry Pike, Director of Lean Deployment and Process Improvement at Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co., the company began its current search for new manufacturing philosophies in the early 1990s. At that time the company was producing about 16 F-16 airplanes each month. In the years following, the production rate dropped steadily until reaching about four airplanes per month. Traditionally, such a drop in production would have resulted in an increase in cost per aircraft, but because the company had already begun employing manufacturing improvements, it actually reduced the cost of the aircraft. “As our rate dropped from 16 airplanes to four, we actually significantly reduced the cost of the airplane each year for five years consecutively. The other thing we did was, we achieved 100% schedule performance of aircraft to our customers and our quality doubled,” said Pike.