BAE Systems
BAE Systems is a global defence and security company with approximately 100,000 employees worldwide. The company delivers products and services for air, land and naval forces, as well as advanced electronics, security, information technology solutions and support services.
A pilot scheme to introduce residential training for quality professionals in BAE Systems is not only helping individuals to improve their skills, but also building valuable networks across the organization.
‘BAE Systems is the largest engineering employer in the UK, and the third largest defence company in the world,’ says Ian Mitchell, Head of Quality for BAE Systems’ Submarine Solutions division, based in Barrow-in-Furness. ‘However, we are suffering from the 1980s’ and ‘90s’ viewpoint that Quality staff are a cost that can be eliminated. People retired or left and were never replaced, so we are missing a generation or two of quality professionals.’ Ian is himself a member of the CQI and a chartered quality professional.
Attempts to introduce distance learning for members of the quality team in the submarine business in Barrow-in-Furness proved unworkable and expensive, so Ian contacted the CQI and ‘challenged them’. He says: ‘The education programmes that support CQI membership are not readily available in the North of England. So the CQI and I developed a proposal.’ This proposal identified the competencies that quality professionals need to gain in order to meet CQI membership requirements, taking into account the knowledge and skills they were already developing within BAE Systems.
Having spoken with colleagues in the BAE Systems’ heads of quality forum, Ian found that other business units were facing similar training and development challenges. ‘Rather than running courses locally to business units, we decided it would be an excellent opportunity to have a BAE Systems residential course where we could start to build up a quality management networks across the organization, enabling quality people from different parts of the business to meet up and share problems.’
The CQI then planned and delivered a twelve-day, four-module residential course, which was piloted for 12 quality personnel in 2008. This has now been rolled out for another 40 quality personnel through 2009 and 10 and continues through 2011 and now includes members of the supply chain organizations. So having completed all the CQI modules and gained five years’ quality experience, they are eligible for CQI membership through the experiential route.
‘I am trying to raise the professional profile of the quality function within BAE Systems and its supply chain,’ says Ian. ‘The CQI training is an important part of that. The Certificate of Training in Quality Practices (CTQP) modules have not only increased our people’s knowledge, but are creating networks across business units which will last for years to come.’