Headquartered in Bethesda, MD, Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMCO) is a global security company that employs about 140,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services. The corporation reported 2009 revenues of $45.1 billion.
Future Combat Systems (FCS) was the United States Army’s principal modernization program from 2003 to early 2009. Formally launched in 2003, FCS was envisioned to create new brigades equipped with new manned and unmanned vehicles linked by an unprecedented fast and flexible battlefield network and aided by various pieces of other gear.
Lockheed Martin Information Systems & Global Services (IS & GS) was awarded the $100M+ FCS subcontract for Level 1 Sensor Fusion (L1F). This software subsystem not only detects and identifies targets of interest, it also fixes the targets in space and time. At this level, sensor systems work together to determine what a target is and where it is at a specific moment in time. Using this distilled information about a target’s location over time, Level 1 information fusion build target tracks – or the paths targets have been following and the paths they are likely to take in the future. Higher levels of sensor fusion are used to recognize patterns and analyze battlefield situations. In May 2009, Pentagon officials announced that the FCS program would be reorganized into a new, pan-Army program called the Army Brigade Combat Team Modernization Program (BCTM).
In this interview, originally recorded in February of 2009, we spoke with the Lockheed Program Manager for the FCS L1F program, Frank Macaulay, about our work with his organization to implement Lean Software Development. The bulk of this work was conducted from April 2005 to May 2007. The discussion touched upon leadership challenges, implementing Lean in a CMMI Level 5 compliant organization, and how has to make changes to organizational structure when the speed of software development increases dramatically.
Listen to this interview (mp3) (30 minutes)
Guest biography:
Frank Macaulay, Lockheed Martin
Frank Macaulay is the Program Manager for Lockheed Martin’s Level 1 Sensor Fusion subcontract on the Army’s Brigade Combat Team Modernization (BCTM)program. Frank graduated with a BS in Operations Research from Cornell University, and an MS in Operations Research from George Mason University. Frank was an officer in the US Navy for 6 years, worked at BDM International in McLean Virginia (now a part of Northrop Grumman) for 8 years, and joined ORINCON Corporation in San Diego in 2000. ORINCON was subsequently purchased by Lockheed Martin in 2003.
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