Original Date: 03/06/2006
Revision Date: / /

The implementation of the Manufacturing Excellence Model provided a needed tool to judge the progress of Raytheon factories’ process improvement and lean manufacturing efforts. Used as an indicator for determining which areas need improvement, the Manufacturing Excellence Model’s 20 functional areas provide an invaluable set of tools for Raytheon management, line workers, and government clients to continuously improve production.

With 24 geographically dispersed factories, Raytheon Missile Systems (RMS) did not have a common methodology for consistently measuring production process maturity. Although many Raytheon factories were doing an excellent job, a common methodology for assessing production was lacking. In 2003, Raytheon’s vice president for operations issued a mandate that an assessment methodology called the Manufacturing Excellence Model (MEM) be implemented within RMS. With the implementation of MEM, Raytheon factories have a common methodology for measuring missile and Phalanx production processes. MEM provides a roadmap and produces consistent metrics, both of which are essential for measuring continuous improvement. The MEM tool consists of 20 key and comprehensive assessment questions (Figure 2-4).

Raytheon believes that “consistent metrics are the key to success” and that implementing MEM is a key element of the company’s lean success. From the first element of MEM (leadership vision) to its last element (continuous improvement), Raytheon is now consistently and precisely able to measure and assess what is important to its business goals across all business units.

One product of the MEM tool is the Individual Factory Report, which provides a consistent basis for measuring lean progress that Raytheon did not have prior to implementing the MEM tool. Raytheon actively pursued a program of improving assessment scores from a baseline 3.4 in July 2004 to a current score of 3.9. Using operations managers from other Raytheon facilities to independently score its factory, Raytheon-Louisville continues to make great strides in overall quality throughout the production enterprise. These improvements have resulted in increased efficiency and reduced cycle time. Monthly metrics including MEM are collected and reported on the Louisville facility MEM scorecard and are distributed via Raytheon’s Manufacturing Intelligence Center (MIC). A weekly scoring sheet is kept for each area in the facility, with all employees using a MEM scoring system.

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