Technical Services Magazine • Fall 2006 - Northrop Grumman ...

Driving Process Efficiencies
Disciplined methodologies central to Mission Assurance objectives
In his new role as vice president of Mission Assurance for the Technical
Services sector, Tom Fallon will be providing leadership for
sector process improvement initiatives, drawing on a robust set
of process-enhancing tools such as Lean, Six Sigma, and sector Dashboards.
The goal of Mission Assurance is to ensure internal and external
customer expectations are met or exceeded; one way this is done is
through establishing best-in-class processes. It’s work Fallon says will
sharpen the sector’s ability to capture strategic business pursuits.
“Our goal is to make Technical Services a powerhouse
in not only providing the highest quality
support and services to our valued customers,
but in doing everything we can to continually
improve and offer greater value to our customers,”
said Fallon. “The more efficient we become
at our work the more successful we’ll be at
capturing and retaining business. It’s something
everyone on the TS team needs to consider as
we continue to grow and provide more opportunities
for our workforce.”
In 2006, the corporation completed the creation
of vice president of Mission Assurance positions
within all eight sectors to bring added
emphasis to the importance of this work. Mission
Assurance is a disciplined application of quality
management systems and lessons learned to
drive out risk and drive down the cost of doing
business. Mission Assurance directly supports
our sector Vision objective of realizing the benefits
of continuous process improvement.
Sector President Jim Cameron conducts a Dashboard
review meeting.
Fallon describes Six Sigma as a systematic
methodology utilizing data analysis techniques
to measure and improve a company’s bottom
line business performance. Six Sigma tools and
techniques provide the foundation to identify and
prevent defects and inefficiencies in all business
processes, and is focused on meeting and exceeding
customer needs.
“Six Sigma and Lean are complementary tools,”
said Fallon. “Lean involves the elimination of
non-valued added steps from a process, reducing
the time to complete something (known as cycle
time), and the elimination of wasteful practices.
Six Sigma methodology is utilized to manage
process variations and reduce undesired variability.
If we can become more consistent, we
can better predict positive results.”
The sector business Groups are using the Dashboard
process to target leading indicators of
potential lagging performance. Leading indicator
performance metrics are predictive in nature
and can be used as an early warning system to
detect sub-optimum performance. Management
then uses the information gained to redirect
resources as appropriate to regain performance.
For the remainder of 2006, Fallon said he plans to
gain a greater understanding of the sector’s various
businesses and cultures and begin forming
the foundation for strategies to apply these tools
across the sector.
T S
Tom Fallon
Technical Services Magazine • Fall 2006