Lockheed Martin

Lockheed Martin is renowned as a global leader in the security and aerospace industry. But delve deeper and one discovers that data and technology lie at the core of its operations. The company’s mission to “solve complex challenges, advance scientific discovery and deliver innovative solutions” can only be achieved using a rigorous data-driven approach.

Goal

Locking in on your target

Lockheed Martin had a simple set of goals for its digital transformation program. It wanted to drive speed, competitiveness, insight and agility across its operations. Business analysts using tools from a variety of vendors (Tableau, Alteryx, Domino Data Lab and Mendix) had common questions about the data they were accessing: how clean was it, how current was it, which was the best instance to use? A governed data catalog proved to be critical to helping answer these questions.

Strategy

Building an information marketplace

Lockheed Martin partnered with Collibra to build out an internal marketplace, powered by Collibra Data Catalog, to make its information assets more accessible. The goal was to quickly populate the marketplace with as much data as possible, so business analysts could immediately derive value from it. Building a critical mass of data meant that analysts and data scientists were drawn to the governed data catalog as a marketplace for their data. The next step was to on-board Tableau reports so users could share their insights.

Results

The value of data lineage and building trust in data

A key benefit from the rollout of its information marketplace has been the way data lineage is captured. The integration between Collibra and Tableau enables users to trace sources of data populating a workbook. This capability has not only provided assurance to business users, but also yielded technical benefits by mapping out dependencies and enabling the organization to better manage the impact of change to its systems. This has allowed the organization to build trust in its information assets and streamline trusted business reporting. Ensuring data subject matter experts play a key role in the certification process has been a crucial factor in the governance program.