Never too late

Richard Johnson and his colleagues had tried pretty much everything to improve on-time delivery of bids. Everything short of threats in a darkened alley. Nothing produced a sustainable improvement. The sheer complexity of the bid chain, each link with its own departmental priorities and demands, seemed to defeat them every time.

Bid preparation is another process which must transcend the old functional barriers before it can succeed on its own terms. The silo is its enemy. DLA’s cross-functional daily stand-up meeting had once again provided the magic bullet

Then, at Annette Hobhouse’s encouragement, they picked up the MPS toolset. “Annette believed that we could crack this if we applied Daily Layered Accountability principles—visual, consistent, the right metrics, the right participation, a daily drumbeat—through a stand-up meeting dedicated to the task,” explains Johnson. And she was right.

Bid for freedom

The Meggitt Avionics Enquiry Management System DLA (a bit of a mouthful, so MAvEMS DLA for short) now brings together all the many people, roles and functions involved in creating, pricing and approving a bid. It first met in June and within six weeks the transformation we see now had been achieved. Bid preparation is another process which must transcend the old functional barriers before it can succeed on its own terms. The silo is its enemy. DLA’s cross-functional daily stand-up meeting had once again provided the magic bullet.

The 15-minute MAvEMS DLA runs at half past nine, four mornings a week. (On Wednesday everyone takes a step back to check on the slow-moving bids quietly travelling through the system.) Participants view a rolling seven-day window of activity. Notionally a Level Two meeting, it isn’t formally tied into the three-tier DLA structure but it is linked to the various morning DLAs held in contributing departments. The attendance list properly reflects the path of the workstream: all Commercial Officers (they run the bids), the Sales and Marketing team, representatives from Production Engineering and Procurement, and (frequently) senior management.

Months of work

Johnson runs through a typical agenda: “We start with a snapshot of all the bids on our database that look like they are running a bit late. There’s a quick run through anything new which has arisen since the last meeting. Anything that requires a proper strategy is flagged up there and then: the bid to design a new assembly for Boeing or BAE Systems, with thousands of components and complex contract terms and export controls, can take several months to prepare. We then review all the bids and prospects active over the coming seven days. Finally we go over any that are about to go out of validity. This is our trigger for a relationship-building follow-up call to the customer.”

There is a much better understanding of how we must all work together if Meggitt Avionics is to deliver its bids on time

A new realism

None of this sounds like rocket science but the results speak for themselves. The web of behavioural and attitudinal changes spun by the new approach is far-reaching and extraordinary.

Johnson credits some of the turnaround to increased personal responsibility: “Once someone commits themselves publically to a particular date, it becomes their date and they do their best to meet it or better it.” This sense of control has, in turn, stimulated a new confidence and realism in dealing with customers. Realistic deadlines and milestones are much more likely to be set right from the start: “As soon as we know that a certain date might become a problem we can call the customer and talk it through. Usually, eight out of ten are fine about it. In fact they are pleased to see us on top of things.”

A new, tougher attitude towards problem ‘prospects’ has also emerged from the daily sharing of insights and reviewing of good data: “We can now see where we’ve been bidding regularly for years with no success, or where promising activity is really only an aftermarket supplier filling up its web catalogue.” Because accounts are distributed across several commercial offices, spreading the workload, trends like these used to be hard to detect. Now a managed response is possible. The sharing of information each morning also highlights duplications of effort, enabling resources to be pooled and problem buds nipped.

Harmony and understanding

The new discipline of four meetings a week has worked wonders. “Even weekly meetings left plenty of time for people to forget or to have other priorities pressed upon them,” says Johnson. But the bigger impact has come from a deeper understanding of both the process and the demands it places on individuals, spreading from the DLA meeting out across the departments and through the management layers. “We used to pick up the feeling that somehow bids weren’t part of the day job – perhaps because they are concerned with the future rather than the clamouring of the here-and-now,” says Johnson. “That’s much less of a problem now. Generally, workload management for people involved in servicing the bid process is more sensitive. And there is a much better understanding of how we must all work together if Meggitt Avionics is to deliver its bids on time.” ■