IT-Led Continuous Transformation in Aerospace and Defense Manufacturing

For many manufacturers, digital transformation still looks like a large IT project that involves a new system, a complex deployment, or a roadmap stretching years into the future. But the organizations making the fastest operational gains today are building continuous transformation systems instead: led by IT, powered by people, and sustained every single day.

Across the aerospace and defense industry, this IT-led model is proving far more effective than traditional, one-time digital initiatives. One example is Avon Technologies, which reshaped its production and quality systems by pairing strong IT leadership with frontline-driven improvement. The outcomes were striking: i.e., a 10× increase in inventory turns, release times reduced from weeks to one hour, and an 18-month MES replacement completed in just six. But the real story is the system behind those results.

This session shows the results of IT-led continuous transformation in practice. The article below breaks down the system behind those results and how manufacturers can apply it themselves.

Defense manufacturers operate under real constraints like rigid specifications, long lead times, and complex supply chains. But most chronic problems come from outdated systems that obscure problems instead of exposing them. Here are the biggest blockers:

• Inventory Hides Problems
  Excess stock becomes sleeping money; it ties up cash and conceals inefficiencies like long changeovers and unstable supply.

• Cost Pressure Without Waste Elimination
  The market sets the price. To protect margins, companies must attack waste, not just trim budgets.

• No Flow, No Visibility
  Work moves in batches with buffers and handoffs. There’s no smooth path from customer demand to delivery.

• Quality Is Caught, Not Built In
  Defects are found at the end instead of being prevented at the source, adding rework and slowing release.

• Change Isn’t a Daily Habit
  Improvements happen in isolated projects. Without a system for continuous problem-solving, issues persist.

Continuous improvement is a proven approach for making operations better every day through problem-solving and process refinement. Across the aerospace and defense industry, manufacturers have built their success on the lean principles that drive operational excellence.

Continuous transformation builds on these principles but extends beyond them. It's the complete system that enables and sustains improvement across the entire organization all without increasing risk, compromising compliance, or destabilizing production. At the core are lean principles like:

• Eliminating waste: Time, motion, rework, excess inventory, delays, and anything that doesn't add value

• Standard work: Defining the best-known way to do the job so teams can improve from a stable baseline

• Flow over batch: Moving from stop-start production to smooth, continuous processes

• Problem solving at the source: Giving teams the tools and ownership to fix issues where they occur

• Visual management: Making problems, blockers, and status visible in real time

• Kaizen: Small, team-led experiments that create steady improvement

Continuous transformation is good for the people of the company as it creates safer environments, reduces daily stress, and builds job security by driving sustainable growth. As teams learn new skills and see their efforts pay off, they become part of a winning culture. People may resist change at first, but they don't resist progress, especially when it makes their jobs easier and their company stronger.

Once continuous transformation is the goal, the question becomes: How do you build a system that enables it, without slowing down operations or creating more complexity?

The answer: design it from the ground up with IT at the core. This new model isn’t about IT delivering change from the top. It’s about IT enabling change across the organization, with the structure and speed to support daily improvement. Four elements make it work:

1. Top-Down Clarity

In aerospace and defense, where quality and safety are non-negotiable, leadership behavior sets the ceiling for improvement. Sustained progress starts when leaders model the discipline they expect: showing up at the gemba, asking questions, and coaching teams, rather than directing change from conference rooms.

“It just happened that Jos... the CEO was in that Kaizen and it was just like the light bulb went off there... this is part of the tool now... one more tool that he's got from an organization perspective to make his vision happen.”

In these environments, hierarchy takes a back seat to collective wisdom. Leaders create a culture where experimentation is safe, within clear guardrails, problems are learning opportunities, and people are valued beyond their roles.

“There [are] no repercussions for making mistakes... You try something, you fail. You try something else... That culture... again is something that's allowed us to expand and be part of the journey.”

This kind of leadership builds clarity: people understand what matters, why it matters, and how they’re expected to improve it. The result is not just alignment, but belief, and that’s what unlocks true bottom-up energy.

Top-down clarity is about culture. When leaders lead by example, they create the conditions for teams to take ownership, speak up, and improve every day.

2. Bottom-Up Problem Solving

In high-performing aerospace and defense manufacturing operations, operators don’t just follow the process, they improve it. They’re the first to notice issues like missing data, unnecessary steps, and delays in flow.
But seeing problems isn’t enough. The shift happens when teams are trusted to fix them.

Kaizen as Daily Discipline
Kaizen is not an event—it’s the structured, governed way teams improve work every day. Operators, engineers, quality, and IT use Kaizen to surface problems, define target conditions, test changes safely, and standardize what works.

Frontline Authority
Within Kaizen, operators are empowered to stop, flag, and fix issues at the source rather than passing defects or working around broken processes.

Structured Experimentation
Kaizen provides the framework for disciplined experimentation: understand the current state, define the target, test within guardrails, and learn without compromising compliance.

Scaled Improvement Levels

• Line-Level Fixes: Immediate corrections within standard work

• Team Improvements: Cross-role problem solving using structured methods

• System-Level Changes: IT-led, quality-led, and engineering-led improvements for high-impact constraints

Regardless of scale, the principle holds: the people closest to the work lead the change.

Cultural Reality Check
Shifting decision-making closer to the shop floor increases speed and transparency, and not everyone is comfortable with that. Some roles change. Some friction is inevitable. That’s not failure; it’s a sign the system is working.

“When you’re shifting a culture… there are ups and downs. There are casualties.” That’s not failure. It’s part of the process.

When operators have the trust to drive improvement, and the tools to act fast, momentum builds. But speed only scales when IT is embedded in the process, not sitting on the sidelines.

3. IT as an Embedded Enabler

In most manufacturing environments, IT is traditionally viewed as a service provider—delivering systems, managing infrastructure, and operating at a distance from frontline operations. But in a continuous transformation model, that separation doesn't work. Instead, IT must become a true partner: embedded in operations, aligned with quality, and actively driving daily improvement.

This shift begins by changing how IT teams engage with the business. Rather than waiting for long requirement documents and building in isolation, IT works side-by-side with frontline teams. They participate in Kaizen events, understand the problems firsthand, and co-develop tools that improve workflows, often overnight. The speed and relevance this creates are only possible when IT is present on the floor, not just in meetings.

“It’s not ‘we do this and pass it to you.’ It’s ‘we do this’, together.” - Daniel Barker, Group IT Director

This embedded model builds trust and responsiveness. When the business needs a change i.e. whether it's a new dashboard, traceability logic, or production flow update, IT can deliver it quickly without compromising compliance or data integrity. Guardrails are clearly defined: frontline teams can improve within their scope, while traceability-critical systems remain protected.

The result is a system that supports rapid iteration and governance. It empowers teams to continuously refine processes, unlocks data visibility, and accelerates the pace of transformation. More importantly, it puts IT at the center of business impact, not as support, but as a strategic enabler of change.

4. A Culture Built for Daily Change

Continuous transformation in aerospace and defense manufacturing only works when the entire organization shares the same mindset: waste elimination, flow, stop‑the‑line, standard work. Leaders, engineers, and operators aren’t solving problems separately, in fact they’re solving them together. That alignment is what turns isolated improvements into a system.

A culture like this starts with visibility. When issues are buried in paperwork or buffers, no one can fix them. When problems are visible in real time, they can. Dashboards, alerts, and stop‑the‑line signals shift teams from reacting to preventing issues.

“If it’s not moving forward, you stop the line… you do not pass on the fault.”

This expectation gives frontline teams real authority: if something’s wrong, they halt the process instead of working around it.

It’s reinforced through consistency, such as normalizing daily standups, clear targets, and strong standard work. When the baseline is stable, teams have room to experiment through quick Kaizens and small, safe process changes.

And it thrives on psychological safety. Improvement has to be safe to try. Mistakes are examined, not punished. People speak up, challenge assumptions, and contribute to designing better work.

A culture built this way doesn’t wait for improvement, it produces it every day.

Tulip supports daily improvement across every layer of your operation—without slowing teams down or compromising control.

• Leader Visibility
  Custom dashboards and real-time data give leaders a clear view of operations, so strategy connects to frontline action.

• Operator Ownership
  No-code tools let teams fix issues fast, test improvements, and turn Kaizen ideas into working apps, sometimes overnight.

• Embedded IT
  IT works side-by-side with ops and quality, building solutions quickly while maintaining governance and traceability.

• Standard Work, Digitized
  Interactive apps guide the work, capture data, and ensure processes run the same way, every time.

• Stop-the-Line Logic
  Built-in alerts and rules make problems visible immediately, so teams act, and not just wait.

• Safe to Change
  Version control, access rules, and audit trails make it easy to experiment without risking compliance.

Tulip makes daily change practical, turning continuous transformation from a goal into a system.