Original Date: 07/25/2005
Revision Date: 09/12/2006

Northrop Grumman Corporation provides a broad array of technologically advanced innovative products, services, and solutions in systems integration, defense electronics, information technology, advanced aircraft, shipbuilding, and space technology. This industry-leading global defense company employs more than 125,000 people in all 50 states and in 25 countries, serving U.S. and international military, government, and commercial customers. Northrop Grumman is the largest military shipbuilder in the world and one of the top three defense contractors in the industry, with $6.4 billion in sales in 2004.

Northrop Grumman Corporation is comprised of seven business sectors that include Electronic Systems (ES), Information Technology, Integrated Systems, Mission Systems, Newport News, Ship Systems, and Space Technology. The BMP Survey was conducted at the ES headquarters in Baltimore, Maryland, a world leader in the design, development and manufacture of advanced electronics for military, civil, and commercial use. The ES Sector provides a variety of defense electronics and systems, airspace management systems, navigation systems, precision weapons, communications systems, marine systems, space systems, oceanic and naval systems, government systems, and logistics services.

Originally established in 1953 on 129 acres, the Baltimore facility has expanded to a 1.6-million-square-foot facility that currently employs 7,100 personnel. This world-class facility is broken up into “cells” to become more product- focused, with cells grouped into “families” of products that include Discriminating Technology, Bare Chip Assembly, Low Temperature Co-fired Ceramics, Surface Mount Technology, Final Assembly and Test, Mechanical Fabrication and Integration, Surveillance, and Integration and Test Capability. The facility’s key cell is its Advanced Micro Electronics Center, with a world-class Rapid 3D Prototyping cell that is its model for development. Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems (NGES) developed this product cell application approach to reduce costs and to improve the output of its families of cells. The ground-based radar systems that detected the first attack on Pearl Harbor in World War II are built at the Baltimore facility.

The co-location of cell families is distributed between the East Building, home of the company’s Material Distribution Center (MDC), and the West Building where large assemblies are produced. The MDC is notable for its Rapid Prototyping, a rapid coating process that significantly shortens the development cycle of products. All machines in the MDC work 23½ hours a day, 360 days a year, producing resins that have earned NGES the notoriety of being the third leading industry manufacturer in resin production.

NGES’ design for manufacturing is a seamless system based on Statistical Process Control- maintained processes, paperless manufacturing, precision assembly, advanced CAD/CAM systems and rapid 3D prototyping. The facility’s manufacturing process focus is process-driven, with the key to yield being the materials fed into each process. First- Time Test Yield is the main component of product success, a process that is soundly backed by the tracking and reporting of cell performance and metrics to ensure product reliability. The facility’s continuous feedback loop guarantees continual process improvement a component of a design/process mix facilitated by Integrated Product Teams working to ensure product conformity to customer requirements. The NGES Baltimore facility is ISO 9001- registered, with robust software processes that lead the industry in performance and an impressive Capability Maturation Model Integration Level 5 in development standards that exceed contractual requirements.
NGES maintains certain core values that are incorporated into the company’s concept of “One Northrop Grumman,” a united family under which NGES management leads by example. NGES promotes employee opportunity by drawing upon skills throughout the company using diverse programs for all employees that enable this industry leader to retain an experienced workforce, providing outside activities for self-development, training programs for new hires to guarantee their success within the company, a first-ever-seen community involvement program, university partnerships, a mentoring program that keeps retired NGES employees actively involved, and scholarship programs for students with a vested interest in engineering. Fifty-three percent of NGES new hires are women, with an unprecedented number of women holding management positions.

The BMP Survey Team congratulates NGES for winning the 2005 Best Manufacturing Practices Award for Excellence and considers the following practices in this report to be among the best in industry and government.

TABLE OF ACRONYMS:
The following acronyms were used in this report:

For more information see the Point of Contact for this survey.