In 18 months, Increase profit, cash and shareholder value had restored an ailing A&D giant to world class performance

Unique lean approach saves ailing global A&D giant

A long‑established global A&D organisation operating across the whole sector began to notice changes in key indicators ‑ share price fluctuation, contracts going to unexpected competitors, profits on the slide... all suggesting trouble ahead. However they were still on the A-list. They aimed to stay there. Here's how they succeeded.

Danger signals
Today's adverse trends can be tomorrow's free fall. Reversing the trend often needs large scale action that is swift but considered.It needs more than another efficiency drive in fuselage production or supplier rationalisation. Improvements in discrete bits of the enterprise always fade. Why? Because activities remain unaligned across units and towards corporate goals and the myriad activities of a great corporation continue much as they always have.

Losing their seat at the top table was the least of the organisations problems. Soon, they could be unable to meet orders, unable to make profits and as investors took their money elsewhere, the shares would crash.

Key Challenges
Top priority was to reduce costs and improve productivity in overhead and support functions across the business; But no single management technique could solve all the problems; It needed a higher level methodology that looked at the operation as a whole.