BAE Systems: A Quality 4.0 upgrade

Businesses and organisations are continuing to evolve out of necessity, responding to an onslaught of disruption, new business models and technology. This continuous change, including that precipitated by the global coronavirus pandemic, is affecting business operations at all levels, with customers demanding real-time interactions, regulators applying increasing levels of scrutiny and governance and stakeholders requiring assurance in this complex and dynamic risk environment.

BAE Systems’ (British Aerospace Systems) advanced defence technology, protects people and British national security while keeping critical information and infrastructure secure. The company searches for new ways to provide its customers with a competitive edge across the air, maritime, land and cyber domains. It employs a skilled workforce of 89,600 people in more than 40 countries and works closely with local partners to support economic development by transferring knowledge, skills and technology.

The multinational arms, security, and aerospace company used IT strategy capability to focus on how the team could leverage technology and introduce enterprise systems through realised investments to enhance functional processes and add to its existing quality management expertise. The programme infrastructure lead for quality at BAE Systems noted, “The biggest challenge has been overcoming people’s perceptions about the value of the role and changing behaviours."

He further added: "It was important to gain credibility for what we were trying to do and generate a level of trust from the start. To do this, a lot of time was spent listening to the subject matter experts in the team to understand their needs and how they work."

This case study was commissioned to take an in-depth look into how the multinational arms, security, and aerospace company used IT strategy capability to focus on how the team could leverage technology and introduce enterprise systems through realised investments to enhance functional processes and add to its existing quality management expertise. The CQI believe that ‘Quality 4.0’ (Q4.0) and the principles which underpin it will directly affect an organisation’s ability to deal with these huge changes in the digital era and, by extension, its ability to successfully uphold the established seven quality management principles. Before this can happen, however, Q4.0 needs to be properly understood, defined, and developed. Consequently, they have funded a research project into the Why, What and How of Q4.0, which has been carried out by the Oakland Institute and Leeds University Business School.

The how, or the implementation of Q4.0, has been examined through a series of interviews with practitioners, structured using the CQI Competency Framework elements, to determine which practices, technologies and tools are being used in their organisations. Part of that work has led to the development case studies, of which BAE Systems: A Quality 4.0 upgrade, is the fourth.