Lockheed Martin’s summer Supply Chain Sustainability intern program provides teams of university students with real-world experience by engaging them to seek solutions to current supply chain challenges. Each challenge is sponsored by a functional team at Lockheed Martin. Students work together to research the challenge and ultimately provide recommended solutions. In 2022, we had 16 interns participate across four challenge areas.

We shifted our program’s focus for 2022 from idea generation to project implementation in order to maximize impact, taking into consideration the prior year’s ideas and current challenges. For example, one team of interns implemented a data analytics idea related to cybersecurity compliance across Lockheed Martin business areas, increasing efficiency and saving 20 working hours per month. In addition to time saved, the solution allows for consistent analysis of Controlled Unclassified Information and Covered Defense Information compliance across all business areas and enables program visibility, identifying vendor-specific capabilities and trends in compliance.

The Lockheed Martin intern program has become so successful that we engaged the International Aerospace Environmental Group (IAEG) to pilot an industry-level sustainability intern program. Interns who took part in the pilot researched what ESG factors are most important to the aerospace and defense industry. Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Collins Aerospace and BAE Systems participated in the pilot, enabling interns to be involved in discussions and meetings across companies and engage in industrywide collaboration. Results were provided to the IAEG Board of Directors, and the intern program will become an official IAEG program in 2023, which Lockheed Martin will manage. This program will help engage new talent in the aerospace and defense industry and generate innovative ideas.

With the goal of accelerating ESG efforts in the aerospace and defense industry, Lockheed Martin, Airbus, Collins Aerospace, Boeing and other industry leaders, along with IAEG, established an industrywide ESG engagement working group, Work Group 11 - Aerospace Industry ESG Engagement, that includes a supply chain sustainability forum. In 2022, this working group held a two-part aerospace and defense industry-coordinated Supply Chain Sustainability Forum. Attended by 200 industry suppliers, the event focused on the importance of ESG and stakeholder engagement, and provided suppliers with an industrywide perspective on the obligations driving us to act. The event was promoted in publications and supplier portals to demonstrate harmonization. In 2023, IAEG and the Work Group 11 Take Off sub-team plan to hold quarterly industry forums on relevant topics.

In 2022, we performed a Supply Chain Sustainability Assessment, expanding the lens of suppliers from the last assessment, in 2019, to include a broader range of business sizes, particularly medium-sized suppliers ($1 million-$10 million). Findings were shared with Lockheed Martin's supply chain professionals to draw broader awareness of our sustainability focus. In addition, benchmark reports were provided to participating suppliers to serve as a helpful and comparative view of other suppliers in the aerospace and defense industry.

Immediate positive outcomes resulting from the assessment include Lockheed Martin’s Ethics organization kicking off the next phase of its Ethics Supplier Mentoring program with the 25 suppliers who expressed interest in the program via the Supply Chain Sustainability Assessment. In addition, we saw a 100% increase from the 2019 assessment in suppliers with sustainability strategies or plans, demonstrating recognition among our suppliers of the growing importance of sustainability.

In addition, Lockheed Martin took part in a request for proposal for a reusable sustainability assessment solution through IAEG, to increase effectiveness in addressing business-critical ESG topics throughout the aerospace value stream. Work Group 11 - Aerospace Industry ESG Engagement was established and is working to identify the best third-party solution.

In 2021, Lockheed Martin launched a new program providing cybersecurity support to an initial selection of small businesses based on specific criteria. This innovative program included 50 openings for small businesses to receive third-party expertise for one year in the areas of phishing attempts, training and perimeter vulnerability scanning. In 2022, we maintained a cohort of 36 small businesses and continued programming that directly enhanced their cybersecurity programs. Based on initial feedback from participants, we plan to continue the program in 2023 and add 51 additional openings for small businesses to gain phishing services.