Our Clients
Lockheed Martin
Sector: Engineering
Lockheed Martin, UK
MDW SHOW & TELL CONFERENCE – SOUTH AFRICA 2007
In October 2007, representatives from Lockheed Martin UK INSYS Ltd visited Johannesburg in South Africa to present to a forum of around 500 people on the benefits and challenges of implementing Mission Directed Work Teams (MDWT), which they have been working for the past two years.
Mr Graham Harraway, Manufacturing Director, Mr Adrian Terheege, Manufacturing Process Manager and Mr Paul Turnbull, Master Production Scheduler, all took part in the presentation, titled "MDWT in a Project Environment", which described how Lockheed Martin UK INSYS is attempting to implement MDWT across their 90 live projects, four business areas and seven functional divisions. The presentation detailed how we have successfully implemented both Goal Alignment and 6S over this time frame and how we are now combining the strengths of the MDWT philosophies with that of LM21, Lockheed Martin's corporate wide Lean / 6 sigma toolbox.
The one day conference also saw delegates from other large corporations around the world, such as Nestle from both Australia and Malaysia, Johnson Diversity in the US and Elementsix from South Africa, present their challenges and successes of the program. In addition to the Show and Tell conference, the delegates also had the opportunity to visit several companies in the Johannesburg area who have successfully implemented phases of the MDWT program. These included a Clover call centre and factory, South African Breweries and a local printing company. This was both very interesting and highly entertaining to see how the cultures of the various organisations have embraced in differing ways the MDWT concept and it was clear how with a little dedication to the program it can produce staggering results for the business. All of this combined with some time to see the beauties of South Africa and to meet the other MDW delegates from around the world made the week a very interesting and unforgettable experience.
Adrian Terheege, Manufacturing Process Manager (Nov 2007).
Terry and I met previously through the process of implementing MDW and I learnt then, that an organisation really benefits from the visibility of targets and providing the shop floor teams with simple tools and techniques
Consequently, I was keen to roll it out at Lockheed Martin (LM). It fitted with all the other LM programmes (LM 21 operating excellence and Six Sigma) and provided the manufacturing team with a framework to involve everyone in the process of improving our performance.
As with all new programmes the actual doing is not without its problems. The regular visits from Terry and his team allows us to support the problem areas and this is the first time that an initiative has really stuck, it has become the way everyone operates and thinks. It is no longer another "initiative", but rather the way we just do things.
Graham Harraway – Production Director (Aug 2006)
