Under David Appel’s leadership in 2019, Raytheon Intelligence & Space modernized two major command and control systems — the Air Force’s Kessel Run program and the North American Aerospace Defense Command Cheyenne Mountain system.
And because the firm applied commercial technology development techniques, it can quickly adapt and upgrade the systems as new capabilities become available.
“That’s a significant advantage for our customers,” said Appel, who serves as vice president of Raytheon Intelligence & Space.
Raytheon is also putting programmer and analyst-run artificial intelligence, machine learning, automation and commercial technology into its products. An important aspect to what Raytheon Intelligence & Space does is ensure its customers understand how to get deeper insights produced by its solutions.
“The faster our customers have relevant data, the better decisions they can make,” Appel said, and customers need agile and quickly adaptable capabilities.
For example, Raytheon Intelligence & Space’s use of DevSecOps has significantly decreased delivery times, and allowed for early detection of challenges. It has also built agile software coding centers where engineers test and apply what they’ve learned prior to the deployment of a capability.
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“In this unprecedented time, we’re focusing on the safety and wellbeing of our employees,” Appel said. “They’re the reason for our success and ability to deliver capabilities critical to national defense.”
With the recent merger with United Technologies Corp., Raytheon Intelligence & Space is focusing on collaborating with the businesses under Raytheon Technologies to bring new and advanced capabilities to its customers.