Northrop Grumman Develops Super Hornet Selling 500+ Units at $50bn

Northrop Grumman Case: Part 1

(Narrated by Ken Cooper) 8:27 minutes

Northrop Grumman Case Part 2 – The Back Story

(Narrated by Ken Cooper) 2:31 minutes

The Issue You Tackled

After experiencing some large program cost and schedule problems, Northrop Grumman hired us to help proactively on a new, yet to be started program–the development of the F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet fighter aircraft. Extensive model usage contributed to an award-winning performance on this development program, and led to new corporate policy beyond that program as well.

What You Actually Did

We developed a model of the project dynamics for the design and prototype production of the F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet. Starting our modeling work even before the development program started, we spent extensive time with senior corporate leaders and the entire top management team on the program. In addition to the pure modeling work, we undertook an extensive series of sessions discussing the Rework Cycle and productivity dynamics. The Program Manager credited the SD modeling work with instilling an important understanding of the unintended impacts of different actions and of design changes (secondary impacts).

“Undiscovered rework” and “the rework cycle” became common elements of the lexicon of the program, changing the culture and thinking among the management.

Following that assignment, Corporate requested an analysis to support new company policies regarding the use of overtime.

This is discussed in the accompanying video, and in the paper “The 00 Hour”.

The Results

Today the F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet remains the premier carrier-basedaircraft for the US Navy, flying over 1100 mph in multiple combat roles. It is widely regarded as an extremely successful procurement in DoD, with over 500 aircraft produced in the past 20 years, with a value near $50 billion.

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