Thomas Allen

Islands of Success

The journey to lean for the US Aerospace Enterprise began in earnest in the early 1990s, as industry and government responded to post-Cold War imperatives. Most organizations responded first by harvesting the ‘low-hanging fruit’ — opportunities that required minimum investment and that would yield quick results. Often, these resided on the factory floor, where it was felt that rapid improvements in production processes could be implemented. To be sure, there were some more far-reaching change initiatives — ‘pilot projects’ — where a measured industry or government investment could show progress and serve as a powerful illustration of new principles and practices. But going after the ‘low-hanging fruit’ was most common.

The 21st-Century Enterprise Challenge

The core challenge for industries in the 21st century involves identifying and delivering value to every stakeholder. Meeting that challenge requires lean capability at the enterprise level.

A Value-Creation Framework

Successful enterprises must not only do the job right: they must do the right job. Becoming lean, as traditionally defined, is important, but it is only part of the story. More important is to use lean concepts and approaches to create value for all stakeholders for all enterprise missions. That’s the essence of our Chapter 1 principles.

The Cold War Legacy

From its modest beginnings at Kitty Hawk — and even earlier, in da Vinci’s sketches — the urge to defy gravity inspired what has since become the aerospace field. And from that moment when we were able to fly, humans have sought to go higher, faster, and farther. This quest was never more manifest than during the decades after World War II, as US national defense and prestige, along with increasing demands for transporting people and goods, drove tremendous growth in the US Aerospace Enterprise — that national community of aerospace firms, US government executive agencies and departments, Congressional committees, professional organizations, universities, and labor unions.

Value in Corporate and Government Enterprises

Creating value at the level of a corporation, government agency, or other multi-program enterprise has long been a challenge. But when companies such as Martin Marietta, McDonnell Douglas, Texas Instruments, and myriad less well-known enterprises are merging or restructuring, and once-familiar names have disappeared altogether, a new sense of urgency grows. How can value best be created at this level? The challenge is large, the stakeholders are many, and this is where multiple value streams come together — each with independent and sometimes conflicting goals.

Value at National and International Levels

Creating lean enterprise value at national and international levels represents a significant extension in the use of all three words: lean, enterprise, and value. Taking a lean enterprise approach to value creation is essential in addressing the challenges that are already emerging at the dawn of the 21st century — whether they involve addressing the limitations of the air traffic management system, pioneering commercial uses of space, or finding new ways to confront international terrorism. Our goal here is to foster a more intentional approach to lean enterprise value creation at national and international levels.

Monuments and Misalignments

By the 1990s, with the Cold War over, the US Aerospace Enterprise found itself in uncharted waters, and the institutions, accumulated infrastructure, and organizations designed for the successful campaign to thwart Communism were without a rudder. To make matters worse, a host of other destabilizing forces — which had been masked by the Cold War — suddenly appeared. The Cold War’s end unleashed a wave of commotion that affected not only the military sector of the US Aerospace Enterprise, but also the commercial and civil space sectors. The once shared interests of aerospace customers, workers, and manufacturers had become misaligned, and products had matured. As the new millennium began, the US Aerospace Enterprise needed a new equilibrium.