Lockheed Martin Six Sigma Management

Rooted in the heritage of 18 different companies, Lockheed Martin set out in 1999 to identify and share best practices to increase efficiency and improve financial and operating performance. While this approach, called ALMS for Lockheed Martin in the 21st century, did identify many best practices, leaders and employees alike soon began questioning the real end objective of the exercise. The realization is that best practice sharing is Just one means too higher end. The ultimate goal is to create a system of work, or operating system, that consistently achieves excellence for our customers, shareholders, and employees.
In early 2000, the title of the effort was changed from ALMS Best Practices to ALMS Operating Excellence. We then looked at he challenge of defining and achieving Operating Excellence and found that, in addition to transferring good ideas, we needed a consistent set of principles and behaviors that would drive 173 us to continuously improve and continuously learn. When we looked both internally and externally for a set of proven concepts, we selected the management philosophies called Lean and Six Sigma.
Many of the Lockheed Martin businesses were familiar with Lean and/or Six Sigma and had been using these tools to eliminate waste and variation in their isolated processes. ALMS quickly became the common report drive for application of the Lean and Six Sigma philosophy and methodology throughout the Lockheed Martin enterprise, with coordinated efforts in training and standard application of the tools. Almost four years later, ALMS has become a workplace standard and a mindset.

The Lean/Six Sigma principles of process improvement have migrated to every business function: Finance, Business Development, Procurement, Operations, Human Resources, Cash Management, Contracting, and Engineering, to name a few. “The Lean/Six Sigma principles of process improvement have migrated to every equines function: Finance, Business Development, Procurement, Operations, Human Resources, Cash Management, Contracting, and Engineering, to name a few. ” More than anything, ALMS , the pursuit of Operating Excellence, is a management mandate with active participation of every employee. Read how is six sigma defined SSD1
Leading this charge to level from the chief executive officer to corporate executive and program managers-? have participated in a 4-1/2 day Lean Leadership training program. The program requires leaders to complete a real-time transfer of learning into action by conducting an improvement event in their business area. These actions, coupled with the work of more than 6,000 employees trained as experts in the principles of Lean/ Six Sigma, have generated thousands of improvements that have touched virtually every one of our 125,000 employees.