Lockheed Martin Aeronautics

DocuPhase Case Study

Industry
Manufacturing
Department
Procurement
Solution
Accounting Automation

The Procurement Problem

Lockheed Martin is a global security and aerospace company engaged in the research, development, manufacture and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services. With approximately 125,000 employees worldwide and 590+ facilities throughout the U.S., Lockheed Martin identified the need to improve a series of flawed business processes and document management issues, including:

  • Paper-driven production processes that lacked visibility and compliance
  • Lost documentation, such as work orders of 50+ pages that needed handwritten signatures at each step of the business process
  • Slow, manual processes, which diminished productivity and strained relationships with buyers

Although they needed to improve efficiency in many areas of the business, perhaps the primary driver for seeking an automated system was their procurement process. Lockheed Martin had to close a significant communication gap between contracts and procurement that had existed for more than five years. In their own language, “completing the circle” would allow them to provide buyers with the information they needed to make informed purchases.

Lockheed Martin was also looking to implement automation into other areas of the business, such as invoice processing in Account Payable and worker instructions in Manufacturing. This would provide enhanced quality controls and tracking, and encourage higher throughput.

Results at a Glance

46%

Reduction in processing time.

49%

Reduction in cycle time.

96%

Increase in productivity.

"This was driven by a need to get better. We know where we wanted to go, and [DocuPhase] really got the ball rolling and gave us the ability to come up with some solutions."

RICHARD DANIEL Project Management & Planning Operations Supervisor, LMA Pinellas

The Solution

DocuPhase’s Workflow Automation Solution would allow Lockheed Martin to define how work was done. With this feature, each employee in the business process is presented with the DocuPhase work queue, which prioritizes work depending on criticality. The business pre-determines how work gets done, assigning work downstream only when all of the information needed is available. By controlling the way work gets done, Lockheed Martin could better measure how effective their business operation strategy is, gain visibility and transparency into their processes and see where bottlenecks were occurring.

The Results

DocuPhase’s Process Automation system allowed Lockheed Martin to expedite all business processes, yielding in significant increase in productivity and customer satisfaction. With their new automated workflow system tasks are now tracked to provide visibility into where assemblies are in the process; users can track requisitions for parts from the generation process through quoting and receipt, allowing Lockheed Martin to tie purchased parts back to original quoted prices; and the Accounts Payable Department can process multiple types of invoices in order to match them against the original purchase order.