Original Date: 02/19/2007
Revision Date: / /

Raytheon’s Network Centric Systems Manufacturing Center in Largo, Florida, created production Transition Centers in 2005 to bridge the collaboration gap between design sites and manufacturing sites, allowing the Largo facility to take ownership of designs transitioning to production. The implementation of Transition Centers has enabled Raytheon to develop a more efficient transition for new products going from development to the production phase.

Prior to 2005, Raytheon’s Largo, Florida, manufacturing facility had less than optimal collaboration with its four main design sites located in Fort Wayne, Indiana; St. Petersburg, Florida; Marlborough, Massachusetts; and Towson, Maryland. Each facility designed a variety of radio frequency products for customers; however, a lack of collaboration among the four facilities led to inadequate manufacturing plans, materials plans, and test strategies when a new product made the transition from the design site to manufacturing. As a result, Raytheon’s Transition- to-Production process often produced cost growths from low yields and a loss of lessons learned on Engineering Development Units produced at any given design site.

In early 2005, Raytheon assessed each design site’s processes and capabilities – specifically tool sets, test strategies, rapid prototype build capabilities, and participation in the Integrated Product Development process. Largo’s production capabilities and the skills of its subject matter experts (SMEs) were also assessed for effective collaboration. Raytheon developed a process to ensure a smoother transition from development to production by integrating a series of improved and common tool sets among the design sites and the Largo manufacturing facility, resulting in the creation of Production Transition Centers that have bridged the collaboration gap with design sites and allowed Raytheon Largo to take ownership of designs transitioning to production. All sites have common Pro-E workstations, common producibility templates, and access to Raytheon’s Process Capability Analysis Tool Set.

The transition changes have proved to be beneficial to both Raytheon and its customers. The lead-time for first units decreased along with many costs associated with the previous inefficient transition process. By matrixing SMEs into the Transition Center process, Raytheon has been able to decrease transition costs and produce more cost- competitive proposals. The change has also allowed Raytheon to more effectively document lessons learned in the development process, which has reduced total cycle time. This has proven to be a real asset to Raytheon in conducting its rapid prototyping at design sites, providing a conduit for the effective and efficient transmission of information to the Raytheon Largo Manufacturing Center.

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