Lockheed Martin Operates Worldwide

INTRODUCTION

Lockheed martin is one of the leading global aerospace, security, defense and also advancement in technological company that has been manufacturing quality products across the world. In accordance with its principle, the company devotes itself in doing research so as to continue serving its customers worldwide by designing, manufacturing and also integrating products and technological systems that are geared towards enhancing world security.

Initially the company began operations in the year 1955 when a merger was done between Lockheed Corporation together with Martin Marietta (Haertlein & Barkowski, 2017).

The company`s headquarter is based in Bethesda in the state of Maryland. Therefore, this piece of work is going to focus on Company analysis of Lockheed Martin.

Corporate social responsibility of Lockheed martin

In accordance with the structure of the Lockheed martin programs, the company puts into consideration the position of CSR. Corporate asocial responsibility in this case refers to the state of the set relationship that a company has in relation to the society that is based on its surrounding.

Lockheed adheres to the corporate social responsibility reforms( Loeb, 2015).Therefore, the analysis of corporate social responsibility in Lockheed martin can be analyzed in terms of the following given dimensions which include ,Environment, Safety and health , diversity ,discretionary and corporate. The assessment by government contractor on Lockheed martin puts its health and safety standards to be very high an indication that it meets the requirements.

This was made possible due to implementation of safety control program which ensures tools, safety programs and other resources are provided to all employees.

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In terms of environmental matters, Lockheed started a program entitled ‘go green’ aimed at addressing challenges on energy and safety of environment. The company also has got a diversity council given the mandate of ensuring all diversities are represented in the workforce.

The company also adheres to human rights since it has policies concerning human rights contained in their ethical codes. Their discretionary is also high in that they put more emphasis on volunteering as well as donating to those are in need an exercise which also includes their employees. In terms of corporate, its corporate is moderate and especially it emphasizes on elements of CSR in their terms. Unfortunately no publishing of CSR report done by the company itself since it’s not in their policies.

Product liability resulting from failure to warn at Lockheed Martin

Lockheed Martin is one of the companies that recently have suffered from product liability resulting from failure to warn. Since the legislations require manufacturer to indicate warning labels that inform the user about the impending dangers that might occur in the process of handling certain products, Lockheed martin got sued for exposing its buyers to danger without informing the about any consequences that could occur. The number of cases that have been reported involving product failure at Lockheed Martin have tarnished the name of this giant company due to the impact it has on the company`s reputation (Haertlein & Barkowski, 2017).

For instance, Lockheed Martin was criticized due to the failure of their build defense systems which they had guaranteed the US ministry of defense effective interception. However, this didn’t happen since their manufactured systems of defense at one point In Hawaii malfunctioned and this resulted into failure since it couldn’t stop the missile fired from an aircraft. The cause of this criticism was due to the failure of the company to give a disclaimer or warning to the potential buyers that the system are vulnerable to failure and that they should ensure that they handle the systems with care for the sake of their safety in case the systems fail.

Also, there have been cases of fraud in specification of the capability of their aerospace systems which at times has resulted into mishaps in their aviation sector ( Moraites et al,2015). . All the liabilities from those mishaps were directed to the company since it hadn’t given warning about the possibility of such occurrences.

However, the company was able to bail itself from these accusation by arguing that all warnings had been given and that the cause of the failure wasn’t associated with failure of being warned against the dangers the product would cause.

Product liability resulting from negligence product design

Liabilities are perceived by most of the companies as a burden to them although they still fail to prevent its occurrence especially whenever they compromise the design of their products. The company has been sued severally due to design negligence related cases that in return due to product negligence.

In one of the cases , the company in the year 1997 w3as sued when a plane crash involving a plane C-130 following a crash that saw five people who were on board during the time of crash. The company was blamed for the negligence in design defects that it had not given warning about when it was designing the cargo plane CC-130 by families of the reservists that perished on board ( Moraites et al,2015). This case was one of the incidents that the company found itself in court defending itself against the allegations of design defect.

The company bailed itself from this trouble by engaging advocates who were able to convince the jury that all requirements had been met by the manufacturer.

Recommendations

There are a number of practices that Lockheed Martin should put into consideration so as to ensure that they do find themselves in a situation that subjects them to liabilities that are unnecessary and which could be avoided if some of these measures are put into consideration. For instance, for the company to avoid the issue of failing to adhere to recommendations of CSR, it should ensure that proper policies on cooperate matters are put in place so as to avoid occurrence of such problems in the near future( Loeb, 2015). They should also ensure that they publish the CSR report annually so as to update the public on their corporate matters.

Concerning product liability resulting from failure to warn, it should always adhere to legislation that govern product description so as to ensure that all the information about their product is well captured according with the law. The description in this case should include the warning about the possible mishaps that the product might experience during its use. Labelling of such warnings should also be done in way that an individual can see them from clearly and should also be included in the term of sale to put more emphasis on other crucial aspects like user manuals which gives guidelines on how such systems should be handled to avoid mishaps and failures.

Third, the company should avoid liabilities from product design mishaps by ensuring that all their products undergo proper designing procedure so as to meet the requirements stipulated in its description. The designs should also be realistic and thoroughly tested to ensure that whatever each design entails is met fully. This would in turn save the company from landing to such liabilities and boost the trust of the potential buyers on their products Moraites, et al, a2015). .

Conclusion

Lockheed Martin as a company has the capacity to grow its sales and reputation now that it team of engineers have been coming up with quality products that have seen the company climb ladder to be top rated aviation companies( Loeb, 2015). In order for this to be achieved, it should ensure that all the above mentioned aspects of the business ranging from its relationship with the environment to product warning and design mishaps are all catered since they are critical for the safety assurance to potential customers.

REFERENCES

1. Loeb, L. E. K. (2015). Defending Defense–Framing Strategic Communication, Corporate Social Responsibility, and Reputation Building in the US Defense Industry (Master’s thesis).
2. Moraites, S. C., McPhail, S., & Sobiski, D. (2015). U.S. Patent No. 9,146,251. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
3. Haertlein, L. L., & Barkowski, J. T. (2017). Applying a Federal Standard of Care in Aviation Product Liability Actions. J. Air L. & Com., 82, 743.