2007 Issue 3 - Raytheon

LEADERS CORNER
Dr. Peter Boland
Vice President
Corporate Engineering
Recently Technology Today talked
with Peter Boland, vice president of
corporate Engineering, about the
role of Engineering at Raytheon and the
challenges it faces in driving growth.
He also discussed his career at Raytheon,
the value of diversity, and what earlycareer
engineers can do to advance in
the company.
TT: What role do Raytheon’s engineers
play in the success of the company?
PB: Raytheon’s engineers contribute to
the company in two main areas. The first
is innovation. Raytheon is known as a
technology company. It’s expected that
Raytheon is always on the leading edge of
technologies in our markets. We depend
on our engineering staff and our technology
staff to keep Raytheon at the forefront
of technology and innovation.
The other major category, especially in
today’s environment, is program performance.
If Raytheon is going to continue to
grow, and if our customers are going to
become an advocate of Raytheon on various
programs, especially the area of
Mission Systems Integration, Raytheon has
to perform very well on its programs. In
addition, we have to make sure that we
keep all of our promises to our customers.
In doing so, it is critical for the engineering
staff, who is the engine of the success
of these programs, to understand precisely
what responsibilities they have, as well as
being accountable for the work they do.
TT: Why is accountability so important?
PB: I firmly believe that Raytheon has
world-class people in Engineering. Where
we sometimes fall short is in the area of
accountability. The challenge for leadership,
management and supervisors is to continually
hone this great talent by providing clear
processes, standards and expectations.
That discipline will enable us to serve our
customers to our fullest potential.
One of the ways to do that is by focusing
more on Performance Excellence. We need
to make sure we understand things like
contractual requirements, and better manage
our subs and suppliers. We really need
to treat our subs, suppliers and partners as
just another Raytheon IPT. As a result, many
of our key goals in Engineering address the
need for accountability, continuous learning
and process discipline. If we can excel in
these areas, I believe we will be unbeatable.
TT: So will engineers also have to
become Performance Excellence or
Quality professionals?
PB: No, not exactly, but they need to help
drive these processes. At the end of the
day, program leadership and leadership
teams aren’t the only ones responsible for
Performance Excellence, Engineering is
too. If we don’t do get behind it, it’s not
going to get done the way it should.
TT: What other challenges does
Engineering face?
PB: An upcoming challenge for Raytheon
is going to be maintaining growth during
the inevitable decline in U.S. defense
spending. When this happens, a potential
area of growth is in the Mission Systems
Integration or the MSI arena.
This will require Engineering to do several
things. One, it requires that we do systems
engineering to a much higher level than
we have done in the past. And, [it
requires] that we develop requirements
from the systems level, from the mission
systems level, all the way down to components
and parts that we supply.
Increased MSI work will also require that
Raytheon have a larger number of partners
— meaning we’ll be dealing with a
larger number of subcontractors and
suppliers. We are going to need to learn
how to manage such organizations outside
of our own environment, much better
than we do today, if we’re really going to
grow in that arena.
That will necessitate better program management
skills, better technical skills, more
discipline and following our own processes,
as well as ensuring that our detailed
processes get flowed down to all of our
partners and contractors, etc.
That’s going to be a significant challenge
for our engineers, and we’re working very
hard in that direction right now with the
Engineering staff, program management,
Supply Chain and Performance Excellence
organizations.
It requires a slightly different skill set than
most of our engineers have today. They
need to understand how to adapt to it. In
fact, we’ve been training engineers in
those areas. They’ve been very willing and
excited about moving forward in that area.
TT: Can you provide some examples of
how Engineering is working to improve
our MSI capability and skills?
PB: Systems engineering is essential to
our growth. To emphasize that, I have
brought one of the company’s most senior
and experienced systems engineers onto
my staff, Brian H. Wells. Although Brian is
Raytheon’s chief systems engineer, a key
responsibility he has is to grow our systems
engineering capabilities through people,
learning, accountability and mentoring.
Brian is working closely with the Systems
Engineering Council to develop common
competency models, improve our processes
and develop people at all levels. He is
working with the corporate learning
organization and local universities to
improve systems engineering learning. At
every opportunity, as Brian traverses our
businesses, he makes sure to visit with
systems engineering leadership to instill
the merits of process discipline and both
functional and individual accountability.
Continued on page 16
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