Many defense contractors, including Lockheed Martin, are struggling to keep revenue high during a time where expenditures by the United States government continue to decline. Despite layoffs late last year, Lockheed Martin was able to post a 23 percent profit in quarter earnings, Fox Business reported. This could be due to the fact that the defense contractor was able to renew its MK-48 torpedoes contract with U.S. Sea Naval Systems, among other partnerships.
Lockheed Martin has been the Navy's supplier of underwater weapons and torpedoes since 2007. Throughout this time, it is likely that representatives from both entities worked to assure good contract life management (CLM) practices were in place.
Taking the time to keep "the documentation up to date and relevant to what is happening on the ground" shows a deep level of transparency between both parties. What makes the Navy and Lockheed Martin's partnership so valuable is that both parties offer services to help one another, Lockheed's press release explained.
The Pearl Harbor, Hawaii facility is provided by the Navy, which includes a wide collection of equipment and parts to make the MK-48 torpedoes. On the other hand, Lockheed Martin offers quality assurance, audit support, maintenance and ordnance handling of the equipment.
"The key to this program's success is our strong partnership with the U.S. Navy," Dr. Rob Smith, vice president of C4ISR for Lockheed Martin Information Systems & Global Solutions, said in the announcement. "Working in unison, our teams established a diligent process that ensures reliability and helps reduce life cycle costs for the Navy's torpedo enterprise."
CLM services can make life dramatically easier during the negotiation of a contract, but are equally, if not more important, during its execution, particularly when performance incentives and penalties are involved. Knowing and tracking contract deliverables and key dates with reminders is one of the things that CLM systems do well, assuring that no key date or deliverable is overlooked and that all parties remain knowledgeable of a contract's status.
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