On the Record with BOB JOHNSON, PRESIDENT, HONEYWELL AEROSPACE
Having won $43 billion worth of business in 48 months, with a
win rate of 80%, Honeywell Aerospace took a few moments to sit back
and consider Corporate's assertion that the company didn't in fact
have a culture of growth.
"We had a nice backlog; over $2 billion business on the A380,
a big position on Joint Strike Fighter, upgrades on almost every
one of our engine products, and we continue to invest in the future
with 17% of our sales going into R&D," says Bob Johnson,
president of $9 billion a year Honeywell Aerospace. "But we
didn't have a growth process."
So Honeywell launched an initiative late last year-which it has
now completed-to determine just what it should do to create a "headset"
of both growth and productivity, to be ready for the economic recovery.
It brought in corporate guru Ran Charan, who co-authored the book
'Execution' with past Honeywell CEO Larry Bossidy, to see
what he had to say.
"We already had great technology. So we said what are the
companies in the world that have great growth processes-let's just
copy them," explains Johnson. "Let's ask Ran Charan, he
knows all those companies. But he suggested there wasn't one. What
they all happened to do was show up with the right technology and
put it in the right place in the right market and catch growth waves."
Unlike many other books on the market that stress high-minded,
complex theories, Larry Bossidy's and Ran Charan's 'Execution'
is a unique and indispensable guide to corporate strategy
that focuses on the quality most essential to every business-the
ability to get things done. Bossidy, past chairman and CEO
of Honeywell International, and Charan, a much-praised advisor
to companies such as General Electric, use the simple metaphor
of building a house to illustrate the importance of execution:
The concerns that often occupy the attention of executives-incentive
systems, process design, promotions, new approaches to organization
structure-are just the walls or roof of a house, while successful
execution is the true core, the foundation upon which everything
else rests. As the authors note in their introduction, "Execution
is a systematic process of rigorously discussing hows and
whats, questioning, tenaciously following through, and ensuring
accountability."
Barnes & Noble
That wasn't the answer Honeywell was looking for. Yet it provided
one.
"We've got lots of technology, and lots of ideas from lots
of great people. We have an unlimited partnership with our customers,
and I think we have a wonderful sense of where they're going. So
it became apparent this was more about the selection process; in
other words, what horses do we bet on, what do we not bet on, how
do we make the trade-offs so we're investing in the growth technology
and not just all technology?
"We sorted this out and said our strategies and investments
will be based around five things." They are:
Extending Honeywell Aerospace's business in services;
Continuing to put its safety franchise (avionics, airline
safety aids) out in front of the industry's needs;
Taking the new technologies being developed for new aircraft
and finding ways to retrofit them to older aircraft as modifications
and upgrades;
Integrating systems on the airplane "to make the airplane
talk, work together with its operators and owners, and weigh
less;"
Emphasize knowledge management. "Our vision is to take
this leading position we have on almost everything that flies
and to have a 'control tower' that manages those fleets,"
says Johnson. "It will use our quality and reliability
information, and the information we have about the fleets and
their evolution, so that we're one step ahead of the problem.
If we see an issue or an opportunity somewhere in the fleet,
we will ask ourselves how do we get that to the other customers,
how do we become a control center for our customers so we're
providing them a service.
"It's predictive, it's best practices, it's knowledge management,
it's all about being a step ahead with the next thing to help them
just keep flying."
Knowledge management systems with artificial intelligence and
many other technologies will help airlines fly more reliably and
efficiently with fewer assets. "That provides opportunities
for outsourcing, and supply chain management," he adds.
Two examples spring to mind-Honeywell's new NOVA wiring fault
detector, and SAM structural anomaly mapping device that can scan
an airframe for cracks overnight. Delta Air Lines has signed up
to be a trial customer, as have elements of the U.S. military.
"With technologies like these we will catch many waves in
succession," says Johnson.
