Wickland Westcott

BAE Systems, Weapons & Vehicles

The Weapons & Vehicles Division of BAE Systems designs, develops, manufactures and provides through life support for a wide range of defence applications deployed on land including fire systems, armoured engineer vehicles, military vehicles, military bridging, and logistical support. Land platforms are supplied to the UK Armed Forces via the MOD, Land Systems' prime customer.

Weapons and vehicle solutions are delivered via multi-disciplinary integrated project teams (IPTs), members of which co-ordinate the various stages within the development and production cycle. IPTs are supported by the Land Systems Procurement Organisation which is responsible for ensuring the availability for direct materials and services. Given that direct materials account for approximately 80% of the value of the end solution, high quality procurement support is paramount.

In line with internal drivers and the MOD's move towards the implementation of the Defence Industrial Strategy (DIS), the Land Systems Procurement Organisation is undergoing major change focused on: ways of working, organisation structure, skills and knowledge. Specifically, the procurement team, which is growing significantly in terms of headcount, will place a greater focus on strategic, category-based sourcing

Wickland Westcott was retained by the Land Systems Procurement Organisation to support the delivery of the change programme with a particular emphasis on the assessment of the existing procurement population and the recruitment of a variety of senior level procurement professionals.

Following several detailed data gathering sessions, members from both the assessment & development team and the search practice within Wickland Westcott collaborated in the design of a programme of activities in line with the client's needs. Initially, this involved supporting Land Systems Procurement Organisation in defining roles and competency requirements at various levels within the new structure prior to designing an assessment process against which to evaluate all existing members the team. In parallel, we developed and executed a campaign to attract candidates from outside of the business in order to help satisfy any remaining skills shortages.

Ultimately, the exercise involved Wickland Westcott co-ordinating the internal application process and assessing approximately 90 members of the procurement team. Candidates went through a bespoke assessment centre comprising of a number of elements including a case study presentation, a group exercise, a competency-based interview and a number of psychometric tests. All candidates were benchmarked against the requirements of the new roles and offered the most appropriate position within the new structure. Face-to-face feedback and development planning support was also provided via Wickland Westcott consultants.

Through a combination of headhunting and advertising, the search team was able to generate sufficient candidates, all of whom went through the same assessment process, to strengthen the team at a senior level and to appoint to a number of other key positions within the new structure.

Mike McVey, Head of HR - Weapons & Vehicles commented "the Wickland Westcott team played a key role in helping us deliver this change programme by quickly understanding what we were trying to achieve, and developing and implementing a set of solutions that clearly aligned with our needs".