2008 Issue 2 - Raytheon

LEADERS CORNER
Continued from page 21
TT: This year, Raytheon redefined its core
markets and targeted strategic business
areas for growth. Can you tell us about
your role in this process and which areas
you believe RMS’ technology and research
can influence most?
LF: It came out of the strategic planning
process, and it really came around our
discussions of refining these core markets
and core capabilities.
Traditionally, our core capabilities said
“missiles.” We refined our core capabilities
to include the word “effects.” This broadened
the concept of where we are going
and where our customer is going.
Our business is all about effects; whether
that is information effects, hard energy
effects, or electronic kill. So, I think it’s great
that the company broadened its definition
to consider the nature of effects.
What’s been exciting for me, having been in
the missile business for a long time and seeing
this movement toward broader effects,
is how it plays in total weapons systems —
in this netted battlespace — which intersects
with so many aspects of Raytheon. For
example, sensing; command control, communications
and intelligence (C3I) systems;
and of course the mission support aspect of
it. But those first two — sensing and C3I —
how do the effects interplay with those two
and give a much bigger, broader solution to
our customers? You can see some of them
and they are very exciting.
We need to know how our weapon or the
effect we are trying to put in the battlespace
is affected by both the sensing
network and the command and control network.
And how do we play on that? It has
opened up tremendous new areas, and our
technology has been very focused on things
like autonomous target recognition and
seeker technologies to track moving targets.
Our core skills are very applicable and transferable
to what we’re doing in some of these
other areas. So, what we’re finding is that
Missile Systems is being used more in the
company and we’re able to provide solutions
in a broader way. So it’s very exciting.
22 2008 ISSUE 2 RAYTHEON TECHNOLOGY TODAY
TT: There’s a new emphasis on radical
innovation and emerging disruptive technologies.
Can you tell us a little more about
these concepts and how they can influence
our future success?
LF: Let me go down two paths. RMS is
leading the company in aspects of directed
energy, which is really a disruptive technology
to the missile business. Early on there
was some debate about whether Missile
Systems was the right place to do directed
energy work. I’m very proud because we
now have the lead on directed energy in
the company, and the company recognizes
that we are interested in disrupting ourselves.
That’s just one example of many
places where I believe we need to disrupt
ourselves in the future marketplace,
because we’re the biggest player in the missile
business.
The second side is on the process side,
and what we’re trying to do with innovating
our design through the manufacturing
process — digital manufacturing, modeling
and simulation all the way from the concept
to the first cut of the project and the
ergonomics of how it gets manufactured.
So disruptive innovation, to me, plays on
the product side and on the process side.
The intersection of those can make you a
world-class company.
TT: In what ways is RMS nurturing the
culture of radical innovation?
LF: I’m a believer that we need to work collaboratively.
I don’t believe innovation
comes from one thought, one person. I
believe it comes from the intersection of
minds from different backgrounds. We are
trying very much to encourage diversity in
thought and participation. The ability to
allow people to take risks — for people to
see that you as a leader are willing to take
these risks, that you as the leader are willing
to go into a future that maybe isn’t
completely clear to you either but you’re
excited about moving into it — is creating
an environment where people are more
excited about the future than they are
about today.
Q&A With Louise Francesconi
TT: You touched on diversity in your last
answer. Would you be willing to expand on
that concept? The diversity of our workforce
continues to grow along with opportunities
to broaden our scope of expertise,
so how do you foster that productive,
diverse technology development team?
LF: So many things have come from single
bright minds, and I don’t want to discount
that, especially in the world of technology.
However, our future lies in innovative disruptive
solutions, which in many cases are
the innovative use of mature technology or
the innovative use of newer technologies.
Innovative disruptive solutions provide an
answer to a customer that the customer
never could see before.
It takes a certain level of thinking to develop
innovative disruptive solutions, and that
level of thinking comes from having people
look at a problem from many angles, many
backgrounds, and many perspectives. We
have to have diverse teams in order to really
come up with those ideas. Now, you might
come up with one brilliant idea as an individual,
but to really mature it, really grow it
and bring it over the line, you have to have
a diverse team of thought around you.
TT: How can we, as professionals, help
youngsters get excited about math and science?
LF: As a community, we need to talk more
about what we do, and we need to volunteer
and get into the schools. There is a
huge group of people at Raytheon who are
engaged in volunteering in the schools, and
Bill Swanson is leading the initiative with
MathMovesU.
Those of us who are in this industry, or have
the enthusiasm for math and science, have
a social obligation to this country and to
our children to stimulate interest in what
math and science can do for their life and
career. I don’t think young people have any
clue what math and science can mean for
them, but they need to know it’s important.
I have to tell you that when I was in fourth
grade I had no idea that I was going to run
a missile business so rich with technology,
but I knew I needed to do well in math
and science.