Strategic Audit of Lockheed Martin

✅ Paper Type: Free Essay	✅ Subject: Organisations
✅ Wordcount: 1876 words	✅ Published: 18th May 2020

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Lockheed Martin provides goods to the civil and government sector, with the bulk of the products being manufactured and sold to the government. Some of the products that Lockheed produces for the civil sector are: LM-100J which is a commercial freighter aircraft, the Sikorsky S-92 which is an off-shore transport helicopter and the Sikorsky M28 which is a passenger and cargo aircraft that can land in remote locations (Lockheed, n.d.). In addition to aircraft, Lockheed Martin produces satellites for weather and space exploration. The biggest buyer from Lockheed Martin is the U.S. Government. They develop, manufacture and sell fighter aircraft, cargo aircraft, radar, underwater vehicles, missiles and bombs and software.

Lockheed Martin has three primary aircraft manufacturing facilities in Marietta Georgia, Fort Worth Texas and Palmdale California with a new facility opening up in Pinellas Park Florida to help with the production of some F-35 parts (Lockheed, n.d.). They have multiple other facilities that provide repair and upgrades to their products throughout the country.

Lockheed Martin produces their products internally, that is because they design, develop and manufacture their products based on the customer’s needs. They provide services such as customer support, field response teams, design teams and field representatives on military installations that use their products. If there is a problem with their products, Lockheed will get the issue fixed as fast as possible because that is who they are and people’s lives could be in danger if they don’t.

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The way that Lockheed ships their products to customer varies on what products they are getting. For example, if the military is getting an aircraft from them, the base that is getting the aircraft will fly a pilot to the Lockheed location and fly the aircraft back to home station. Other products form them are shipped by what ever means is more cost effective and better for the economy. Lockheed uses a website that their suppliers can sign into and gain access to their system, from there they can see their purchase documents and can bid on contracts and auctions along with other business activities (Lockheed, n.d.).

Lockheed Martin has approximately 105,000 employees around the globe. This encompasses their more than 375 facilities and more than 17,000 suppliers in the U.S. and other countries (Lockheed, n.d.). To go along with these employees, they have a comprehensive medical plan for them. Some of the benefits are: medical, vision and dental, tobacco cessation, healthy lifestyle incentives, free flu shots, health coaching, a 24-hour nurse line, fitness center, walking paths and a wellness center on site. Lockheed offers paid vacations, paid time off for military obligations and jury duty, this is just a few of the benefits that employees of Lockheed Martin get while working there.

Lockheed Martin does have a union, but not all employees are a part of the union. This union contract took effect in 2018 and is for five years. Lockheed ensures that all of their facilities are up to code and safety regulations according to a report from 2017 (Lockheed 2017).

As with all companies, Lockheed Martin has been fined by the government. Since 2000, Lockheed Martin has had 82 violations for a total penalty of $227,056,440 (Violation Tracker, n.d.). One such case was a $13 million agreement to pay the government because they sold satellite technology to China. This sale violated the arm export law (Sanger, 2000). Even though Lockheed Martin has achieved a perfect score on their human rights campaign’s corporate equality index for nine years in a row, there was a protest at Lockheed Martin headquarters in Palo Alto because of their sale of weapons to Saudi Arabia (Taaffe, 2019). Anti-nuclear protests in the UK and America target factories that produce weapons and in Australia, there were protests at a building getting ready to be demolished for a new research facility owned by Lockheed Martin. This protest was because these individuals thought that Lockheed Martin was gaining to much influence in the country (Pestorius, 2018).

Lockheed Martins’ HR office has multiple goals. Some of these goals are: ensure Lockheed Martin has the right talent, in the right location and time and at the right price in order to fill business needs. HR is focused on the success of their people and their business, while developing relation strategies to meet business commitments successfully (Lockheed, n.d.).

Information technology is a core component in Lockheed Martin’s business model. Everything that they produce requires this technology to communicate with other aircraft, computers or individuals. In 2018, Lockheed Martin partnered with Guardtime Federal to integrate cyber-related capabilities and a variety of integrity capabilities into their aircraft processes and products. This agreement focuses on further reducing the attack area on information that is forwarded from the supply chain to operational aircraft systems and back again (Lockheed, 2018). This partnership starts with the development and ends with the fielding lifecycle by focusing on the continuing evolution of current and future cyber threats. Lockheed Martin’s future outlook for their IT utilization is that they will continue to improve on their IT in order to stay ahead of any adversary. If they fall behind on their IT, missions and lives will be in jeopardy.

Lockheed Martin’s utilizes a virtual customer support center 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. There is always an expert available that will analyze emergency situations or aircraft problems to deliver a rapid solution. They do this because the U.S. military is a 24 hour a day 7 days a week and can be called to fight at any time business that requires support from Lockheed, since they are the biggest customer for them.

Lockheed Martin does use automated machinery to help build their products, but still use people in every aspect of the building phases of their products. They call this additive manufacturing; this style is allowing parts to made more cheaply that are more capable and durable than previous parts. This is also reducing the power, size and weight of the systems and products (Lockheed, n.d.). Lockheed Martin uses automated logistics to make the parts procurement process efficient and quick. The UK Ministry of Defense uses Joint Asset Management and Engineering Solutions (JAMES) logistics technology that allows the military to identify a location and quantity of parts for its equipment. The U.S. military has a system that basically does the same thing for its F-35s called Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS) (Lockheed, n.d.).

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