Lockheed Martin Tactical Aircraft Systems Research Articles

SPECIAL FEATURE: KNOW YOUR COLLEAGUES—ROBERT DAMELIO AND CARL BINDER

SPECIAL FEATURE: KNOW YOUR COLLEAGUES—ROBERT DAMELIO AND CARL BINDER

Ergonomics and the Customer Satisfaction Model: Ergonomics in the Language Of Business

Ergonomics has a strong human focus and success lies in integrating the effort to the goals of business. It is suggested in this paper that ergonomics has a strong contribution to business in any continuous improvement effort. This strength lies in the focus on the human as an employee or participant in business ventures and as a customer or a recipient of the product or service. A customer satisfaction model is suggested that pulls together customer and employee oriented qualityinitiatives that are occurring across industries with examples drawn from the Lockheed Martin Tactical Aircraft Systems (LMTAS) experience to illustrate the application. The various initiatives of National Quality Awards and productivity improvements through the Lean Enterprise focus have made major changes in business processes. For the human factors and ergonomics message to be part of these current business trends it must be phrased in the language of business.

An action-research based instrument for monitoring continuous quality improvement

Despite containing an extensive body of normative or prescriptive studies, quality management literature offers little by way of generally applicable guidance concerning how to measure or monitor the critical factors underlying strategic quality management initiatives, such as total quality management and continuous quality improvement. Although several studies have relied on survey data from a multiple set of sources to unearth models of such factors, they do not offer general guidelines to select factors appropriate in a specific setting. In this paper, in contradistinction to the multiple-source survey methodology, we take an action-research approach and present the findings of a contextually specific, single-site empirical research that we carried out at Lockheed Martin Tactical Aircraft Systems, in Fort Worth, Texas. We discuss the implications of our findings for extending our empirical understanding of the factors underlying strategic quality management programs and for the development of reliable and valid instruments to monitor them.

Ergonomics and Workforce Vitality

Lockheed Martin Tactical Aircraft Systems (LMTAS) has launched a Workforce Vitality program with the objective to spawn an environment where people believe they not only are empowered, but also have an obligation to speak up whenever they see something that needs to be changed or improved. Banners or slogans are not part of this program. It is a commitment to see a new way of doing business. Soon after the program was introduced, the highest percentage of suggestions was to have the work areas improved to meet ergonomic criteria. Once the employees and management saw the potential for ergonomics improvement to their work area, this requirement became equal with quality and productivity as an objective. This paper will review the LMTAS Workforce Vitality Program and draw parallels with ergonomic improvements. Such a comparison will show that the objectives of the Workforce Vitality program are complemented with ergonomics.

Taking a Powder

This article focuses on the use of laser in conjunction with metal powder. The use of the laser in conjunction with metal powder could be regarded as an extension of rapid prototyping, which has involved plastic parts almost exclusively. However, terms such as ‘direct metal fabrication’ and ‘rapid manufacturing’ suggest that developers have much more ambitious goals in mind for powder metals. Lockheed Martin Tactical Aircraft Systems in Fort Worth, Texas, is operating a research facility based on the laser engineered net shaping (LENS) process on the same factory floor where the F-16 fighter is assembled for the US Air Force. Optomec Design Co. in Albuquerque builds machines for use with the LENS process. Tests of Sandia National Laboratories' laser engineered net shaping process take place in a tank at Lockheed Martin Tactical Aircraft Systems. Much can be done in direct metal fabrication to improve the thermal conductivity of tooling for injection molding and die casting. The result can be increases in cycle times of as much as 80 percent.

Ergonomics and the Customer Satisfaction Model: Ergonomics in the Language of Business

Ergonomics has a strong human focus and success lies in integrating the effort to the goals of business. It is suggested in this paper that ergonomics has a strong contribution to business in any continuous improvement effort. This strength lies in the focus on the human as an employee or participant in business ventures and as a customer or a recipient of the product or service. A customer satisfaction model is suggested that pulls together customer and employee oriented quality initiatives that are occurring across industries with examples drawn from the Lockheed Martin Tactical Aircraft Systems (LMTAS) experience to illustrate the application. The various initiatives of National Quality Awards and productivity improvements through the Lean Enterprise focus have made major changes in business processes. For the human factors and ergonomics message to be part of these current business trends it must be phrased in the language of business.

Metrics and Processes for F‐22 Requirements Management

AbstractThe F‐22 Advanced Tactical Fighter Program has documented over 76,000 functional and design requirements in more than 231 hardware and software specifications during its Engineering and Manufacturing Development (EMD) phase of development. Because of the complex and integrated nature of the requirements, it was necessary to develop an automated relational database tool in which to store, track and analyze these requirements.Besides selecting an electronic tool to use team wide, a process had to be developed for the requirements change process, along with metrics for the tool to generate, in order to monitor the process. The process had to be acceptable and nonintrusive to procedures already established at the three primary contracting companies of Locheed Martin Aeronautical Systems, Lockheed Martin Tactical Aircraft Systems, and Boeing. The metrics needed to be easily collected and provide relevant data to the health and accuracy of the overall database.This paper documents the criteria which went into tool selection, the procedures established for tool use, and the metrics developed to monitor the process.

Lockheed Martin Tactical Aircraft Systems: quality survey results

Rapidly changing business conditions make it difficult to see the future with any degree of certainty. Consequently, many firms have undertaken a thorough self‐examination and reworking of procedures and methods to position themselves to compete in the global marketplace of the 1990s. A crucial element in the changing and improving processes is raising the quality of the product or service the firm provides. Lockheed Martin Tactical Aircraft Systems has a vested interest in changing to meet the new requirements of the aerospace industry and decided to re‐evaluate its business practices, with the goal of increasing productivity while simultaneously increasing quality. Management decided to conduct a large‐scale quality survey throughout the company to understand the company’s current level of quality and the quality perceptions among employees. Reports on the results of that study, with a brief description of the development of the quality survey instrument and the information discovered during the data analysis.