MANAGEMENT ON THE MOVE
LOCATIONS
10 Nov 08. NASA has announced that a team led by Lockheed Martin was selected to perform the Facilities Development and Operations Contract (FDOC) at the Johnson Space Center. The contract is scheduled to start on January 1, 2009, and is a three-year and nine-month contract worth approximately $667.3m. The contract also includes two one-year options that could raise the value to $977 million if all options are exercised. FDOC services will include the development, sustaining engineering, operations, and maintenance of facilities supporting training, flight design, flight planning, reconfiguration, and real-time operations for human space flight programs. Additionally, FDOC will provide the development and sustainment of user software applications.
07 Nov 08. Turkish Aerospace Industries, Inc. (TAI), Ankara, Turkey, a major international supplier to Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC ) on the F-35 Lightning II program, today opened a new facility dedicated to producing composite subassemblies for the new international, multi-role fighter. The opening of the 74 thousand square foot facility represents TAI’s latest progress towards becoming a second source producer of F-35 center fuselages for Northrop Grumman. Under a Letter of Intent signed with Northrop Grumman in Feb. 2007, TAI plans to produce and assemble at least 400 center fuselages beginning in the low rate initial production (LRIP) phases of the program.
PLANT CLOSURES, JOB LOSSES AND STRIKES
11 Nov 08. Boeing engineers and technical workers said late Monday they have reached several tentative agreements with management over non-economic issues during the most recent round of contract talks. In an update from the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace, union representatives said the latest round of negotiations will continue through at least Wednesday, with the focus now on wage increases, medical benefits and retirement issues. Issues around early retiree medical care and outsourcing remains unresolved, the union said. Labor negotiations began Oct. 29. (Source: Google)
12 Nov 08. Defence cuts ‘risk another Iraq’. The government is cutting its Defence Intelligence Staff, despite warnings it could lead to serious mistakes, BBC’s Newsnight has learned. Former defence chief John Morrison says the move makes a repeat of the errors which produced flawed intelligence ahead of the Iraq war more likely. In 2004, an inquiry called for the DIS be strengthened to prevent further failings, but now 122 jobs are to go. The current head of DIS insisted it was still of “critical importance”. (Source: BBC)
12 Nov 08. Swiss Defense Minister Samuel Schmid, long under fire from his former
party, resigned Nov. 12 for “health, family and political reasons,” he announced
Nov. 12. Schmid held the post for eight years but had been heavily criticized in recent months by Switzerland’s right-wing Popular Party (UDC), from which he was excluded in December 2007. (Source: Defense News)
14 Nov 08. JCB has announced 400 job losses.
PERSONNEL
MILITARY AND GOVERNMENT
12 Nov 08. The U.S. military in Iraq is abandoning – deliberately and with
little public notice – a centerpiece of the widely acclaimed strategy it adopted nearly two years ago to turn the tide against the insurgency. It is moving
American troops farther from the people they are trying to protect.
Starting in early 2007, with Iraq on the brink of all-out civil war, the troops
were pushed into the cities and villages as part of a change in strategy that
included President Bush’s decision to send more combat forces. The bigger U.S. presence on the streets was credited by many with allowing the Americans and their Iraqi security partners to build trust among the populace, thus undermining the extremists’ tactics of intimidation, reducing levels of violence and giving new hope to resolving the country’s underlying political conflicts. Now