October marked an exciting turning point for Leonardo UK, with the introduction of the Future Factory Strategic Change Programme.
It is all about re-imagining and redefining how we run significant elements of our business by utilising an integrated set of advanced technology capabilities to work for us. This will create the headspace to enable our people to continue our long-established heritage of innovation in the marketplace and keep Leonardo competitive for decades to come.
There are three important reasons our business has introduced this programme.
Leonardo recognises the requirement to work with UK Enterprise partners to provide evidence of Transformation. This is necessary in order to build confidence in the eyes of our Customer in our ability to transform to meet the current Time and Cost challenge for Future Combat Air Systems (FCAS.)
We need to fully integrate the supply chain from initial commercial interactions, through engineering our designs, and through to shipping completed products to our Customers. The emphasis being on utilising technology to streamline our processes and interactions.
We need to achieve on-time, in-full deliveries in our productivity to ensure we can ‘deliver on our promises’ to our Customers and Stakeholders.
As highlighted by Mark Hamilton, MD Electronics Division, this is a path of people-driven change, and “It is one of the most significant and largest investments that will have been made by Leonardo in the UK for some time. Not only will this deliver an improved, simplified and digital operation but it will also necessitate a change in our culture”.
The Future Factory programme is built around four Projects that will deliver step-change improvement in performance across the full breadth of our business. Many of the improvements already underway and planned for the future, are as a direct consequence of case studies and “pain points” that have been highlighted by our People.
The Integrated Planning Project will address the administrative burden currently experienced by Project Planners and this load will be eased through the deployment of a robust, easy-to-use, Integrated Planning system to remove non-value adding activity from the planning process and optimise the allocation of resources to meet Customer deadlines.
The Digital Engineering Project will address the inefficiencies experienced by Engineers through the forced use of disconnected datasets, achieved by introducing a digital engineering platform that flows data seamlessly from design through to manufacture and beyond.
The Digital Factory Project is to transform the way we manage our data and processes in the manufacturing operations environment enabling people to gain access to data at point of need, automating processes and providing intelligence to step-change efficiency levels.
The Supply Chain Transformation Project will bring efficiencies to our existing resources and processes as well as helping to grow the relationship and enable far closer co-operation and collaboration with our external supply chain partners.
The Future Factory Strategic Change Programme certainly represents an exciting new chapter for our people – to do what’s really important: think, invent and solve problems!
For further information, please visit the Future Factory pages on ConnectUK.