Terrible company culture and dysfunctional work enviroment, Terrible Management
Pros – Cedar Rapids good for family life.
Great business growth since mid decade, although doubtful future prospects.
Technical work is boring or interesting depending on role and project (but terrible management and culture is a huge drain and makes it not worthwhile).
Cons – Company propaganda: Rockwell Collins is about Integrity and goes by the book on principles.
Fact: I discovered that for people that are connected inside the old boys/gals circle, Integrity and ethics are mere convenience. They can juggle and flip it any way they want to suit their own agendas. Key people including people in Management, HR and Ombudsman are involved in behaviors that Rockwell should not be proud of. In addition, what I see from other bloggers and what I heard and saw inside the company is not encouraging.
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Company propaganda: Rockwell middle managers in Engineering are focused on providing customer value and will put themselves on the line to achieve it.
Fact: In my experience and observation (and getting information from several quarters), the middle managers and long-time engineers are coasting along and need scapegoats to pass the buck.
New hires with experience in other companies are particularly vulnerable. HR mentioned during new hire orientation that it is not what you know and are capable of doing that matters in this company but rather who you know.
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Flexible hours but talent and skill have almost all left.
The flexible hours are nice, and management is supportive within their budget constraints. But that's about it for the good sides.
Most projects do not have realistic schedules for the amounts bid. Also, the majority of experienced engineers who started most projects have almost all retired or left.
Focus recently has been on delivery times even with the unrealistic bids; however, there is very little career training on fundamentals to make those goals even remotely realistic. Things like embedded systems programming issues, tracing requirements, architecture, design, coding standards and review are mostly just an afterthought now that the people who laid the foundation have nearly all left.
Goals are more or less to hack the current code base and ship it as quickly as possible. Those who go along with that get promoted; those who find design issues or bring up other issues during reviews become outcasts quickly, finding themselves pawned off on other work nobody wants to do that is the result of previous hacks and lack of design. Thus the career death spiral is hard to avoid if you can't turn a blind eye to issues.
Software process and tools are about 25 years behind the industry. The only thing saving most products is that the hardware design and testing equipment are unique/advanced enough to outperform the competition.
They've been trying out "Scaled Agile", but it's been largely used as an excuse to make scrum masters do managements job without the title.
Some upper management needs schooling. A lot of friends and family type issues.• Provided day to day working leadership within a production facility by ensuring that safe-working procedures, good housekeeping practices and all company policies are adhered to at all times.
• Plan and organize the efficient and effective use of manpower, equipment and material resources.
• Scheduled, distributed and control work assignments to provide smooth flow of both priority and routine tasks to ensure efficient utilization of personnel and production requirements were met in a timely basis.
• Provided support and direction to employees on all questioned challenges.
• Worked with my team to drive continuous improvement through driver measures, open team dialogue and actively participating in Driver/ACE board meetings.
• Participated and supported all ACE related activities and drive ACE initiatives.
• Interfaced with appropriate support personnel (Manufacturing, Engineering, Production Control, and Inspection, in the investigation of production problems encountered in meeting schedule requirements and/or quality standards.
• Acted proactively to ensure a safe work environment and promote safe work habits through formal audits and continuous contact with the shop floor.
• Acted as a coach and mentor to improve employee performance and engagement.
• Resolved employee concerns by listening, analyzing and taking action.
• Conducted performance reviews, lead coaching discussions and p
The "we have always done it that way-that's why" attitude got old fast.
I knew that coming into a mature and established ECAD PCB layout department would have its benefits as well as its drawbacks. My expectations coming in was that I would be assisting in the transition from current legacy environment to Mentor Graphics Xpedition. I have helped with many of these types of initiatives over the course of my career. It is common to meet resistance to any change. However, the level of resistance of adoption to the new tool and processes was greater than anything I have experienced before. I had no idea the level of resistance to change I witnessed. (The following is just one example of many encountered during my tenure at Collins Aerospace) The group I was in, still places "targets" on the four corners of the PCB while designing in the CAD tool. This is an outdated and non value add practice. The four targets were used in the beginnings of PWB layout when mylar tape was used to design boards (pre computer and software). Since modern software aligns the files automatically for us, the practice of using the targets is no longer a value add activity. Yet this division of Collins not only requires these targets to be in the PCB layout but the design checkers will write you up if you don't have them in your design. We now have software and computers to line up the gerber files for us. Light tables and targets are obsolete.
The division I worked in purchased Xpedition (not an inexpensive tool)to design their products. The transition timeline has
ProsSame amount of oxygen at Collins as other places.
ConsI dont have enough time in the day but read my review.
Competitive pay and benefits, High & often unrealistic expectations
I worked at UTC for 5+years. UTC had 14 schedule changes during my time, to the current work load of 4on/4off 12 hour days, with a high frequency of calls early am on your days off to come in for OT. They have no problems paying OT you work. Work loads are visually tracked and expectations are often unrealistic. Support and management are often unavailable when you need them. The Spokane plant has a very high turn over due to management, schedule changes and ever increasing production expectations. There are never enough people to meet production demands and every day you have to explain why your department failed to meet them. This leads to conflict within the teams. There always has to be someone to blame. Managers in general are inexperienced and overloaded, and don't always handle things the best ways. Communication severely lacks at this facility. Promotions are given to the most popular employees over those who are most qualified. This facility expects a lot from all of it's employees and doesn't care if you have a life outside of work. Before it was bought out by UTC, the atmosphere was "family" oriented. Now it is strictly "corporate" oriented. HR is no assistance to it's employees for any matters. Plant manager allows managers, engineers and admin to run the facility. Often times people spend more time micro-managing other people than actually contributing to successful production.
Bottom line is, its a rough, stressful and frustrating job to go to day in and day
ProsGood benefits, Competitive pay
ConsManagement, Corporate ideologies, Work Schedule, Micromanagement, Unrealistic expectations, Promotions
Once you get familiar with the material management and accounting system, Collins offers very challenging work assignments in a business casual workplace. It is like a family here and something about the culture and inclusiveness drives you to get involved. The culture is team-driven and customer-focused. Achievement of goals is paramount to job security. You are expected to perform your duties well and help others to achieve theirs and with an attitude of graciousness.
Most of the people you work with are brilliant, sharp, hardworking and have a can-do attitude. They enjoy what they do and spend 60-80 hours a week in the pursuit of building the future of Collins here in Sterling. The hardest part of the job is the political and managerial ambiguity. It is a fast-moving technical environment as well.
I would say that the most enjoyable part of the job is creative freedom; to use the available tools and freedom to create new tools to get my job done. My manager is supportive most of the time. I also like to work with supplier partners to build win-win relationships. The programs I work on and the people that staff them are the best in Industry. You could not ask for a better team of people, than Collins Aerospace.
Navigating the political structure well-enough to achieve the Vision that could be realized at Collins takes a person that deals well with workplace ambiguity. For a relatively small presence in Sterling the politics are highly visible. The policies ar
ProsFamily Oriented
ConsDifficult to support programs when Cedar Rapids intercedes.
On the surface the company looks le a great place. Once established in the ranks, it's apparent that the only focus is dollars. The constant spiral of continuous improvement is merely for show. Management doesn't support quality initiatives. Metrics are ignored and the only thing they show is a lack of action from leadership/ management. Management will flat out tell you they don't have time to train up employees. Individuals have been let go for fraudulent maintenance encouraged by their leadership who is still present. Absolutely no accountability. People constantly overstep their roles and responsibilities in order to support numbers and will disregard established processes and procedures making it more difficult in those areas where lines have been crossed. This degrades the morale of the employees and creates a constant battle for those who are truly passionate and engaged. Leadership goes so far as to take customer goods and transport them in their personal vehicles, violating too many requirements to count, just for numbers. The manuals/ procedures are ignored even after leadership approval. The current QM has started multiple times that he cannot wait for his 12 months to be up so he isn't required to lay back relocation costs. The previous QM to that created a toxic relationship between Ops and Quality, pulling wool over everyone's eyes until finally let go. It's a shame they don't embrace the excellent employees they do have and merely look to just stay afl
ProsBenefits and pay are good, As long as you're not rank and file in operations aork life balance oa good.
ConsManagement will backstab you, Leadership will only support things that push their product out the door regardless of the fallout, Nobody is held accountable for any actions
You could do much better than the Electronic Systems Center
This review if focused on the Electronic Systems Center located in Phoenix AZ. This site was part of Goodrich before being acquired by UTC Aerospace Systems. It is now part of the newly renamed Collins Aerospace.
I would recommend being very careful when considering working there. Over the last four years leadership has turned over several times and employee attrition has been very high. That doesn’t happen in a well run, successful organization. My experience is that there is a poor overall level of competence at all levels within the organization. This site is responsible for development of high criticality airborne electronics, but when you look closely at managers it becomes obvious that there is almost no real world design experience. The people in these management roles have little to no ability to make reasoned decisions or assess the quality of work or skill of members of their team.
What you end up with is a culture where you spend a majority of your time planning and re-planning projects, creating unnecessary project updates, and trying to work around roadblocks. All this extra work makes 50-60 hour weeks necessary to get the important work done. The competent people in the organization inevitability become frustrated and move on.
Historically, higher level leaders did not communicate a coherent vision for the organization. I would be surprised if that has changed as I believe it comes from being part of the UTC Aerospace Systems. The exec
ProsPay and 401k match were good
ConsHorrible culture
2.0
Senior Customer Service Representative | Wilsonville, OR | Sep 8, 2013
Working with Customers and getting their Aviation equipment back to them in a Timely Mannor
Quotes to customers by email, getting quote approvals back from customers any where between 10 to 25 a day. Talking to customers on the phone , tracking there equipment down and letting them know where it is in the process and how soon it will ship giving AWB's. Working with Technician's out on the repair floor working with Shipping Receiving. Dealing with AOG's and Urgent requests for major Airlines and business jet. Foreign and Domestic.
Doing Billing Review on the units that are shipping that day working with other people in Cedar Rapids to clear Billing Blocks, Credit holds.
Making sure all customers are happy and getting the attention they need. Weekly meeting with Program Managers, Meeting with my manager for the Sales each week so that we reach our goal each month. Working with the Service manager to get customers units out in a timely manner.
I have learned that the customer ALWAYS come FIRST.
Management : I don't mind working hard but 12 hour days are a bit much and managers are not Proactive at all and do not listin to the employees.
Most of my coworkers are great to work with. We all work very hard and try to address the customers needs. There are some I work with that work harder at getting out of work then just doing their job.
The hardest part of my job is working with a manager that don't know what and how my job is done and just assumes.
•the most enjoyable part of the job is working with the customers and making a great working relationship wi
ProsGraet working relationship with the customers
Conshealth care rates
1.0
Manufacturing Engineer | Riverside, CA | Mar 26, 2021
Politics,Cliques, Too many chiefs, Management does not listen to you, but will blame you when things go wrong
There is a lot of politics that occur here. If you rub someone the wrong way they have a say on your development/career progress regardless if you report to them or not. They like to have a lot of managers but not enough people who can actually contribute. All the managers do is ask for status updates rather than actually contribute to problem solving. So you consistently have many managers asking you for the same updates, then when they go to their meetings they present the information as if they are the individuals conducting the work. We currently have had a lot of employees leave to seek work elsewhere, yet management thinks its more of an individual problem rather than work culture issue. They do not see it as employee attrition.
Basic structure of the work place is that you have 3-5 managers for one engineer. Instead of providing help for the engineers they think adding another manager would somehow ease the load of the engineer. Management does not understand how to manage their personnel. They conduct these employee surveys but be careful, they go straight to the manager and the manager receives only what his team said on the surveys. So if the manager has 2-3 people underneath them, they can easily narrow down who gave them a low score.
Managers believe anyone is interchangeable and do not understand anything in the process. There are several divisions within the site, union vs salary, technical vs production, operations vs program management, department vs departm
ProsAerospace industry, decent coworkers
ConsHorrible Benefits, Bad work life balance, management has no idea what they're managing. Layoffs each year
A déconseiller à des ingénieurs/cadres ayant de l'ambition
Ancien fleuron de l'industrie aéronautique, automobile et militaire française (ex-SAMM, TRW, Goodrich), cette société a choisi au gré des rachats par des holding anglaises puis américaines de mettre l'accent sur la rentabilité à (très) court terme au profit d’actionnaires étrangers. Ceci se fait au dépend de l'esprit d'innovation et de l’excellence technique qui ont longtemps fait le succès de l'entreprise.
Le recrutement valorise un passé prestigieux et un salaire d'embauche attractif (mais sans intéressement ou participation significatif grâce à une optimisation fiscale très performante).
Parmi les points positifs, les augmentations faibles mais régulières (qq% par an) et le CE sont à souligner: Le CE est géré de façon juste et intègre, il y a de nombreuses façon d'en profiter même quand on est cadre. Des évènements sont organisés régulièrement (sorties Kart, ski, wakeboard, VTT), des chèques vacances et des places de cinéma et spectables sont proposés
D'un point de vue carrière, peu de perspective de développement ou d'évolution: Au-delà de mon cas personnel, je n'ai vu aucun de mes collègues évoluer de façon pérenne au sein de ma filiale ou dans une autre filiale (les mutations entre filiale sont quasi inexistante).
Le middle management a bien du mal à proposer des évolutions et subis les lourdeurs d'un grand groupe (Plus d'une douzaine de niveau hiérarchique entre le PDG d'UTC et l'employé de base). Les managers semblent avoir peu de visibilité et ne semblent p
Prossalaire légèrement plus élevés que la concurrence
ConsPerspectives de carrière, Management anglosaxon
A very good organisation. I fully enjoyed working for them for more than 24 years. Due to Personnel reason I couldn't relocate Sydney.
I enjoyed working for Collins Aerospace. It is a great company. A friendly environment and they looked after employees very much.
• Full responsibility for the finance organisation, and ensured an accurate and on-time delivery of reports to the local and overseas Management.
• Provide meaningful recommendation for any associated risks and guidance for corrective actions on Project finance and related operational matters to the Project management team and Senior Leadership.
• Responsible for the preparation of annual operating plan, cost centre budgets, bid rates and cash flow reports.
• As part of continuous improvement to the process I was responsible for developing and implementing new policies and procedures.
• Within the finance organisation, a team of eleven (11) finance staff members were located in two locations, (Sydney and Melbourne) I provide regular training and mentoring for further improvement of the performance.
• The payroll function is also part of my responsibility, including all the tax matters, such as company income tax, FBT, transfer pricing, payroll tax and R&D.
• I work very closely with Project Manager and other departmental managers and able to prioritise the projects with the tight deadlines including reporting requirements to the parent company in USA.
The skill and the experience I have developed in managing projects in multi-currency environment and along with my passion to support the leadership strongly motivates me to work for
ProsThey provided Top level Private Health Insurance, Yearly bonus, Motorvehicle allowance etc
ConsTight deadline for reporting and long hours during month end.
Questions And Answers about Collins Aerospace
If you were to leave Collins Aerospace, what would be the reason?
Asked Mar 25, 2017
Better salary, more responsibilities and to grow with another company.
Answered Oct 23, 2021
New job at another company. New career opportunity. New future for stability and security.
“It was time to move forward with my life...”
Answered Jan 30, 2021
What is the interview process like at Collins Aerospace?
Asked Jul 28, 2016
Apply online, recruiter reviews resumes and selects most qualified candidates for the job to be filled. Recruiter schedules preliminary phone interview, if candidate proves to be a match for the position to be filled, the recruiter forwards resume to the hiring manager for consideration.
If the candidate is selected for further interview, the candidate will have a phone interview with the hiring manager, if all goes well, the candidate is invited for further interviews onsite with other key managers which, based on the position, may include the HR Manager/Director, the Regional Director and other key manager(s).
Collins Aerospace is a great company and when hiring is done, we select the best candidates. This is what makes the company strong. We believe in diversity and inclusion, we look for teamplayes, innovators, individuals who are customer focused and results oriented.
Overall, working at Collins Aerospace is great. Career growth is available for those who are focused and discipline in achieving their goals.
Answered Apr 10, 2020
Apply online, recruiter reviews resumes and selects most qualified candidates for the job to be filled. Recruiter schedules preliminary phone interview, if candidate proves to be a match for the position to be filled, the recruiter forwards resume to the hiring manager for consideration.
If the candidate is selected for further interview, the candidate will have a phone interview with the hiring manager, if all goes well, the candidate is invited for further interviews onsite with other key managers which, based on the position, may include the HR Manager/Director, the Regional Director and other key manager(s).
Collins Aerospace is a great company and when hiring is done, we select the best candidates. This is what makes the company strong. We believe in diversity and inclusion, we look for teamplayes, innovators, individuals who are customer focused and results oriented.
Overall, working at Collins Aerospace is great. Career growth is available for those who are focused and discipline in achieving their goals.
Answered Apr 10, 2020
What tips or advice would you give to someone interviewing at Collins Aerospace?
Asked Aug 2, 2016
Ask how long you sit before they actually start to train you on something because it could be a month.
Answered Nov 19, 2019
It's a waste of time they just want numbers
Answered Jun 8, 2019
How long does it take to get hired from start to finish at Collins Aerospace? What are the steps along the way?
Asked Jul 13, 2016
Its pretty fast. Phone interview, panel interview, then decision
Answered Feb 13, 2019
Anywhere from 30 to 90 days. Depends on how desperate they are
Answered Feb 4, 2019
If you were in charge, what would you do to make Collins Aerospace a better place to work?
Asked Jan 4, 2018
Closely evaluate all leaders in the organization to ensure those that are managing/leading teams are doing so with the customer and employee at the heart of their actions and words.
