Highlights from the American Aerospace & Defense Summit

For two days in December, 150 peers from the aerospace and defense industry gathered at the American Aerospace and Defense Summit in Scottsdale, Arizona. Here, they heard first-hand case studies and strategic insights from some of the most prominent manufacturers in the industry, including Airbus, Northrop Grumman, GE, United Technologies Corporation, Raytheon Missile Systems, Triumph Aerospace Structures, and Meggitt.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, some of the key lessons delegates took away from the event were around lean deployment, how to embed a customer focus into every aspect of your business and, above all, organizational culture.

The keynote address on Day 1 came from Allen Vyce, President of Triumph Aerospace Structures, who shared with the audience a case study on how Triumph Aerospace Structures is delivering operational improvements across the entire business value stream through cultural changes that have been made at their Red Oak, TX facility. In a shift from a larger, outdated facility, Triumph moved to Red Oak in 2014, and Vyce says they brought with them a lot of bad habits, causing their performance to languish over the past few years. Over the last 18 months, however,  there has been a significant transformation at Red Oak that stems from a renewed focus around leadership development, employee engagement, and driving the Triumph Operation System, which is a set of business parameters all around continuous improvement. Vyce shared how they have been changing the culture and driving operational excellence step-by-step. In the past year, Vyce proudly told the audience, they have seen a 78% reduction in open workmanship tags.

Vyce’s address gave a fantastic introduction to operational excellence, lean methods, and employee engagement. He was followed throughout the 2-day summit by thought leaders that went in-depth on topics that were near and dear to them.

Dr. Alexander Eksir, VP, Supplier Quality at United Technologies Corporation, spoke about “Embedding a Zero Defect Plan”. He asked the audience to think analytically about how to achieve lasting value. If Y is a function of (X) and Y= achieving lasting value, then what factors enable Y?  Eksir outlined four main factors:  human capital (domain and behavioral competencies), organizational systems and structure, customer intimacy, and innovation. Investment in these four strategic areas, Eksir says, is what leads to zero defects, reduced cost, and increased customer confidence.

Giovanni Spitale, President, GE Aviation Czech, dug deeper into what Dr. Eksir calls ‘customer intimacy’ in his presentation about “The Building Blocks of a Customer-Centric Organization” and the importance of this within the aerospace industry. Everyone thinks they are customer focused, he says, but “few do the deep work that’s required to actually develop a customer focus and embody that within their organizations.” He stressed the importance of this for the whole industry, saying, “We are all a link in someone’s supply chain. If our organizational performance isn’t producing at the level and the output that our customers need us to, then it imposes dramatic consequences both upstream and downstream.” He is a firm believer that being customer-focused is no longer a differentiator, but is the ante to the game, and that “you won’t get there with a job description alone – you need every single person on the team to understand what it means and to drive the culture of being customer-focused.”

Shubhayu Chakraborty, President, Performance Sensing, from Meggitt, spoke about “Developing a Sustainable Lean Deployment Plan.” Like Spitale’s conviction that everyone thinks they’re customer-focused, Chakraborty says that everyone feels they’ve tried lean, but so often, he says, it just doesn’t work. While there’s no secret sauce, he says there are some key components. Chakraborty told the audience how to build their A-team, where to start, how fast to go, how deep to go, what indicators to pay attention to, where to standardize, what your role is as a leader, and why you shouldn’t rely on your ERP system alone.

To view these presentations and more from aerospace and defense industry thought leaders, request access to our knowledge center.

Join the conversation at one of our upcoming summits:

• American Manufacturing Summit | Lombard, IL | March 27-28
• American Supply Chain Summit | Dallas, TX | April 9-10