HUNTSVILLE, Ala. – Sept. 19, 2013 – Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC) recently held its 12th annual logistics conference in Huntsville, Ala. The conference focused on increasing enterprisewide collaboration while leveraging investments to improve global mission readiness and affordability.
A photo accompanying this release is available at http://media.globenewswire.com/noc/mediagallery.html?pkgid=21040
More than 130 Northrop Grumman logistics professionals attended the event where conference presenters spoke on topics including talent, business processes, strategy and innovation, and the customer environment. Featured guest speakers from the U.S. Army included retired Lt. Gen. James Pillsbury, who served as deputy commanding general of U.S. Army Material Command and retired Chief Warrant Officer 4 Michael Durant, author of the bestselling book, In the Company of Heroes.
"In this challenging economic environment, delivering on our global commitments to our customers is critical. Northrop Grumman has, what I like to call, 'extreme logistics' expertise that is important to supporting our leadership in unmanned, cyber and C4ISR," said Chris Jones, sector president and corporate vice president, Northrop Grumman Technical Services. "This expertise delivers a high level of affordability and mission execution and effectiveness for our customers' platforms and systems over their entire lifecycle." Jones is also a former U.S. Air Force maintenance officer and chairs Northrop Grumman's Corporate Logistics Council.
In support of transforming the total lifecycle of a military system for the next generation, conference participants learned the value that enterprise resource planning has on mission readiness.
"We've been able to reduce the number of logistics applications by 56 percent in three years time," said Todd Norwood, vice president, application services, Enterprise Shared Services. "What's great is that our experiences and lessons learned inside the company can help our customers think through their affordability challenges and goal of achieving more efficiency through enterprise resource planning."
Attendees also shared the experiences and challenges of knowledge management and advancing the discipline of global logistics.
"We have a highly dedicated group of logisticians at our company, many are retired or former military, and they bring with them a unique set of capabilities to the job that benefits all of our customers," said Jim Zortman, sector vice president, global logistics and operational support, Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems. "This conference is designed to bring together those great minds to think through today's challenges and what lies ahead for the next generation of not only our employees, but our military customers. From our 'support anywhere' practices to our innovations in 3-D modeling and simulation, we are advancing the science of total lifecycle logistics and modernization." Zortman is a retired U.S. Navy vice admiral and former commander, Naval Air Forces.
Northrop Grumman is a leading global security company providing innovative systems, products and solutions in unmanned systems, cyber, C4ISR, and logistics and modernization to government and commercial customers worldwide. Please visit www.northropgrumman.com for more information.
