2015 Program Excellence Award
For 11 years the aerospace and defense industry has participated in the Aviation Week Program Excellence Award initiative. Developed in 2004, the program is designed to honor programs that meet requirements, address challenges, and exemplify best and unique practices in value creation, leadership, processes and organizational performance, adapting to change, and execution excellence.
The goal of this initiative is to recognize and promote program excellence in terms of performance, leadership capability, and outstanding lessons that can and will be shared broadly within the aerospace and defense community. By taking part in the submission process, nominees agree to be part of this program to share information.
Framework
The criteria for this award are based on the best elements of program/project leadership excellence programs developed by the Strategic Project Leadership Program of the Technological Leadership Institute, the NIST Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Awards, and the NASA/USRA Center for Program/Project Management Research.
The award will examine four critical areas according to the following framework:
Within these four critical areas, the Program Excellence Award evaluation will include a focus on the following industry-wide program management challenges:
Reducing development cycle time compared with similar efforts or less than plan Breaking the cost/learning curve
Dealing with intel/property security, safety, raw materials, environment
Please keep these focus areas in mind as you respond to the Phase I and Phase II applications.
The Evaluation Team will determine finalists and winners on the basis of scores in these four categories. The winner(s) will be featured in Aviation Week & Space Technology and at www.AviationWeek.com, as
well as honored at the annual Aviation Week Aerospace Defense Chain Conference to be held November 3-5, 2015 in Phoenix, Arizona.
Entries will be evaluated on the basis of performance for the previous 36 months.
Nominations are encouraged from commercial aerospace, space (commercial and defense), defense and security sectors and should be made in one category only:
Sub-System R&D/SDD Sub-System Production Sub-System Sustainment System R&D/SDD System Production System Sustainment Special Projects
In each category and based on meeting a threshold score to be determined by the Evaluation Team, finalists will be chosen on the basis of scoring on Phase 1 and Phase 2 entries and analysis by the Evaluation Team. Aviation Week retains the final responsibility for selection.
Program submissions will be evaluated on a 100 point scoring system. 20 Points - Value Creation
30 Points - Team Leadership
20 Points - Adapting to Innovation and Complexity 30 Points - Metrics, Measuring Performance 100 Points – Total Available
The Evaluation Team reserves the right to choose no winners and to name an Overall Winner, if the nominations so warrant, based on the combination of scoring against the criteria, best practices, and game-changing leadership.
2015 Evaluation Team
Michael Bruno, Sr. Business and Supply Chain Editor, Aviation Week
Jean Chamberlin, VP Program Management, Boeing Defense, Space & Security Ed Hoffman, Chief Knowledge Officer, NASA
Keoki Jackson, VP Program Excellence, Lockheed Martin Corp.
Robert Kolosieke, Director of Mission Assurance, Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems Ron Morey, Sr. Director Fixed Wing Solutions, Rockwell Collins
Warren Nechtman, VP Program Management & Business Operations, Honeywell Aerospace Detra Sarris, Director of Programs, Northrop Grumman Corp.
Aaron Shenhar, Founder, Strategic Project Leadership
Jesse Stewart, Professor of Program Management, Defense Acquisition University
Intellectual Property
Note: Individuals outside your company review award submissions. All information submitted should address the program’s management, leadership, and processes, and not any otherwise classified or proprietary topic. Do not include any materials marked Proprietary. All documents will be copied and distributed via the Internet to the aforementioned Evaluation Team and will be considered as public knowledge.
By submitting an entry to the Aviation Week Program Excellence Awards program, you are
indicating agreement to participate in outreach efforts to share Lessons Learned/Best Practices in an effort to raise the bar on program leadership across the industry. Entries may be also used for
comparative research among programs to draw conclusions and lessons learned across the industry.
Format of Submission
Phase 1 – Nominees submit, in narrative format, their perspective on why the program excels and identify
the teachable lessons in program execution within the past 36 months (beginning January 2012). The focus in this narrative should be how the program has successfully addressed challenging issues or met seemingly difficult requirements. Note that while the technology involved is an aspect of complexity, the technology itself is not being evaluated – the leadership and execution of the program are being evaluated.
Limit this narrative to four pages, 12 point Times Roman typeface with 1” margins.
Include with the narrative a one-page biography of the program leader, including what sets this individual apart as a leader.
Identify by name a representative of the program customer, and include phone and email information. Customers will be asked for go/no go decision regarding consideration of this program for the Aviation Week Program Excellence Award.
Phase 1 is due April 1, 2015 to [email protected] .
You must use the tabular format provided to submit your nomination form. You should use 12 pt.
Times Roman font to fill in the tables. Submit your document as a PDF file.
Upon completion of Phase 1, narratives will be reviewed for “fit for excellence” and qualified nominees will then be provided with the Phase 2 submission form by no later than April 21. The Phase 2 forms will be due June 30, 2015. Finalists and best practices will be identified by no later than September 7.
Submission and Questions
Questions and submissions should be directed to Carole Rickard Hedden
Project Leader, Aviation Week Program Excellence Initiative
[email protected] 505.239.9520
Phase I Submission – LM Supplier
Name of Program: F-16
Name of Program Leader: JORGE FERNANDEZ
Phone Number: 305-267-6400
Email: [email protected]
Postage Address: 1260 NW 57th Ave, Miami FL 33126-2012
Name of Customer Representative: Shawn Anderson
Phone Number: 817-762-2036
Email: [email protected]
Category in which you are competing (choose one of the following): Sub-System Production
JORGE FERNANDEZ Partner
Mr. Fernandez is the co-founder of Summit Aerospace overseeing all operations and shop
functions. He has held various operational and management positions throughout his illustrious 35 year career within the aviation industry. As a result, Mr. Fernandez has a comprehensive and thorough understanding of Summit Aerospace. Prior to Summit Aerospace, he worked with Caribe Aviation, Aviation Sales, and Hamilton Sundstrand. He has held the positions of both President and General Manager and was instrumental in relocating both Caribe Aviation and the New Hamilton Sundstrand facility in Miramar, Florida.
Summit Aerospace is passionate about earning their customer’s respect. This has been the driving motivator since the company’s inception in July 2001, with the dynamic and experienced
leadership of Mr. Fernandez and Mr. Jiron. It's this passion for customers and their competitive spirit that drives excellence in their day to day operations. Their culture represents diversity, inclusion, mutual respect, responsibility and understanding. They welcome fresh perspectives and varied experiences.
Summit Aerospace is a privately owned, minority business with over 35 years aerospace experience, and they continue to develop innovative technologies to shape the future of test equipment and alternative repair solutions for commercial and military fleets. They employ over 130 employees; own 3 facilities and have capability to support over 26,000 different parts. Not only does Summit Aerospace perform repairs and maintenance on 48 various aircraft, but they also have capability to design and engineer hardware.
Summit Aerospace is expanding their capabilities into the new generation of aircraft and continues to sustain military aircraft with cost-saving technologies and solutions.
In an industry driven by competition, quality, reliability, and problem solving, Summit’s primary focus is mission critical solutions. Summit does this every day all day with rewarding results.
Phase I Program Narrative - 1
As an alternate repair source Summit Aerospace, has been able to excel in the key areas of customer support, adaptation, affordability, and repair turn-around time.
Customer Support
Summit Aerospace, Inc. is dedicated to exceed our customers' expectations. Their ongoing commitment to earn your trust through honest, proactive communication and expert workmanship results in the best service in the industry.
Summit Aerospace provides a dedicated account management team for its customers and offers an electronic bar-coded monitoring system, allowing them to customize specific reports and provide real time production status for their customers. .
As an aid to their customers; Summit Aerospace will provide technical assistance, planning, logistical support, field service support; and 24 hours AOG support, as well as access to Summit Aerospace component pool. Summit offers a high level of professionalism and experience, with the intent to exceed customers’ expectations on every job. The executive management team is comprised of seasoned individuals with least 15 years of experience in the various areas of customer support in the aerospace industry. This provides a unique advantage of having clear leadership and vision for their company. At all levels, Summit Aerospace employees fully understand the relevance and importance of their activities and how they contribute to the achievement of the established objectives.
In order to support any repair, no matter how severely damaged, Summit has technical staff with decades of combined experience and engineering staff that are extremely creative, flexible and inventive. Along with their in-house team they have an unlimited resource of external industry professionals that work together to find solutions. Summit's engineering staff has created new approved repair processes that have taken parts otherwise deemed as beyond physical repair at other facilities, and made them repairable. This engineering staff is also working to reverse engineer items to assist in DMS (diminishing manufacturing sources) issues that will help keep costs down and these items to be repaired.
Pricing Affordability
Summit strives to stay competitive in this aggressive market by ensuring their quotes are reasonably priced. They are able to accomplish this by providing overall management and technical direction including financial and schedule control, coordination, reporting and
administration. Summit manages its effort to assure effective internal control to meet customer's requirements and is willing to lay-in critical and long-lead materials to save cost, and prevent delayed repairs.
Phase I Program Narrative - 2
Other Preprocesses that they have in place include:
A streamlined processes using reasonable estimating techniques, including the use of improvement curves for production on high volume components
Management processes and tools are in place based on previous/concurrent production and predicted monthly schedules
Implementing advance purchase of replacement hardware material (kits) to obtain a price breaks
Deferring deliveries based on the customer’s schedule, passing obtained savings to customer, and assuring the replacement hardware delivery schedules and quantities are consistent
Incorporate maximum utilization of equipment, as well as minimizing machine tooling setup and other processes thus increasing productivity during the duration of the program
Quick Repair Turnaround Time
Summit recognizes the importance of continuous improvement and evaluates their processes to identify ways to improve efficiency and affordability. One of these process improvements impacted three areas at the same time. In 2014 they negotiated a deal with one of their top suppliers to develop a Just-In-Time (JIT) support for repairs. This program is a parts supply strategy where Summit maintains three months of material on hand to service aircraft components. This program has allowed them to dramatically reduce their repair turn-around-time (TAT), reduced cost due to higher volume discounts and reduced work load required for their purchasing team due to less processing of purchases orders.
Following the improvements with the JIT program Summit looked further and to find that the work load in the shops had a tendency to fluctuate. With appropriate training, Summit level-loaded the work force throughout the shops by cross training the staff to provide a major efficiency increase, while allowing their technicians to grow and expand their knowledge into new products.
Phase I Program Narrative - 3
Phase I Program Narrative - 4
