Thread regarding Honeywell International Inc. layoffs

A similar process was standard.
Unfortunately the small companies are not using risk adverse methods and don’t mind destroying a few rockets to learn.
Things are going fast now and Honeywell must learn that you will need to spend and lose 99 times to get the one in a hundred big win. The future looks like something very different than how Honeywell is structured.
New companies own every step of the supply chain from the raw material producers (lithium mines) to the key subassembly builders. Everything in house under one roof. They might be global but projects are completed under one roof. They also, despite Honeywell saying otherwise, do not understaff. I hear my peers at Raytheon(Pratt) and GE saying their projects are staffed at 5 to 10 times what Honeywell commits with time periods about half as long.
iPDS had its day. Time to forget those failures that drove it and learn to take risks again.

Corporate looks at IPDS as nothing but a story for Wall Street. Do you think any of them really know what it is or cares? They have no stake. Do you really think anyone at corporate would ever come to a site and get involved with any process or create a new process. I heard DA talking up HOS at town hall, just another story. All corporate is doing is trying to create the biggest pile of cash they can by cuts and sales, transform to software co, and give WS stories to keep stock pumped up.

IPDS is ok but you need the right level of project engineering resources to manage the process.

IPDS like most processes at Honeywell was conceived after some VP went to a seminar. An actual process has some means of measuring the effectiveness of the process baked in so that it may be improved. Anyone see any process measurement at Honeywell, especially concerning IPDS? Any impact on some stakeholder who didn’t do their job as promised? Then you wonder why things don’t improve....

Few ever knew what that bloat was really supposed to mean, and those few are long gone now.

Take the flawless launch effort out while you’re at it. Don’t see the benefit of it although the ‘mantra’ is repeated over and over again whenever the likes of FH starts praising about the benefits and its achievements. Everyone knows that its just a big baloney where if products that went through flawless launch should be zero escapes and maximum delivery. Sadly, haven’t seen any it and yet top management claim its success. What these buffons should do is to actually follow a project seeing it to completion. Eventually, they will realise the its for nothing

It's what happens when leaders only advice is to get it done. Only track how many and a date. Don't want to hear any issues or complaints. All issues left up to the worker bees to figure out. So what do you think people do, try to check boxes and push things through. It's all good until someone gets poked in the eye

IPDS works great if you know in what phases work should be done in. Sadly, many project, fellow, fellows, and chiefs don't have a clue in aero.

This usually exposes itself when some manager prematurely signs contracts with suppliers in IPDS phase 1 or 2. But the analysis to determine the procurement specifications can not be valuated until phase 3 or 4.

Compounding the issue, the project engineer will rush through gates 3&4 exits to stay "on schedule", which pushes the analysis to Phase 5. (There is no process to audit if the work was really completed to exit a phase.)

Then, once in Phase 5 someone finally does the IPDS Phase 2 analysis and stands up and says the design doesn't work and those procurement specifications need to be re-negotiated with suppliers.

Then the person that raised the issue gets laid off.

IPDS is a great concept, but per HON culture it morphed into a bloated, overdesigned abomination, kind of like FMS. And then management figured out it is a great way to micromanage and impede progress and innovation.

Doesn’t follow process? Lol. Honeywell aero spent more than 300,000 man hours of US labor creating and throwing away processes between 2009 and 2015. Yes, my number is accurate, it is actually low as it doesn’t account for untold training and angst among program people.

The result was a workforce that is incapable of thinking. AEP should have been called CYA. During estimation aep tasks are used to massively inflate cost by estimating documents instead of work products. During the project every overrun is blamed on process. After the program any missed step is the scapegoat. Result —- everyone stops THINKING.

The pendulum swings. Next set of programs are executing with no process and a new generation of engineers is learning old lessons the only way that sticks.. in the lab, in the field, late at night.

Ask Boeing how lean engineering worked out. They were the ones that pushed us in this direction. Now we don’t even have quality or reliability or rad effects as a recognizable part of our work.
When was the last time you saw a quality engineer invited to a design review?

IPDS can work if managed correctly. Now flawless launch and OTL... those are the biggest waste!

People that understand IPDS have slowly left or RIF'd. Leadership doesn't understand it, that is for sure. So you have new people being told - "Get it done" or "Whose got this one- give me a name" Remember, anyone can do anything, nothing is hard. Engines grow on trees.

IPDS isn’t the problem. You have an organization broken beyond repair. The trade is the stock price.

You must be relatively new. Having watched how programs were managed in the late 1990’s vs after the implementation of IPDS the structural change is an absolute must. I worked several very successful new development and SRD programs at engines that benefited from the structure. I’ve been gone for over ten years. My guess is the current organization doesn’t follow process intent and likely doesn’t understand how it works. It works if you have individuals who understand and follow in an efficient manner.

Oh by the way, a similar process is the standard throughout the industry.