https://www.fictiv.com/case-studies/honeywell

About the team
Industry: Aerospace

Product: RE100 auxiliary unit

Location: Phoenix, AZ

Why fictional
Customer Challenges: Need to shorten lead time for product innovations to meet customer expectations

Capabilities exploited: High precision CNC machining, fast DFM feedback and optimization

Result: Reduction of lead time from 22 to just 3 weeks and delivery of parts in record time, delivering significant customer benefits

Accelerating the development and production of parts

Through more than a century of innovation, Honeywell has established itself as a leader in industrial technology development. From energy-efficient buildings to aircraft, to protective equipment and performance materials, Honeywell sets the standard for high-performance products built for the future.

Image of a twin-rotor Chinook helicopter
The Chinook T55 engine, with improved fuel economy, reliability and affordability, is just one recent example of Honeywell's innovation. Source: Honeywell

To continue their legacy as a leader in industrial innovation and deliver better products to their customers faster, Honeywell is investing in digital transformation across every facet of the global organization, both internally and through strategic partnerships.

Jon Hobgood, Vice President, Advanced Manufacturing and Automation, is leading this transformation effort for Honeywell Aerospace to increase the organization's performance and customer satisfaction through new technologies.

“Automation and digitalization are the keys to future competitiveness,” said Hobgood. “There is no doubt that our customers have the mindset to expect our products much sooner, and as a company we want to meet those needs in the market.”

“Our customers have the mentality that they expect our products much sooner, and as a company we want to meet those needs in the market.”
– Jon Hobgood, vice president, advanced manufacturing and automation at Honeywell
The challenge: navigating a complex, global supply chain

Given the size of their product portfolio, extensive supply chain and global customer base, manufacturing lead times can be a barrier that prevents Honeywell engineers from delivering new innovations at the pace customers demand.

“Some of the challenges we face are around the length of our supply chain,” Hobgood said. “In some cases it can take six months to two years to obtain parts. Acting faster, to get parts to our customers faster, is a major issue for our company today.”

Partnering with Fictiv to help accelerate development

The partnership between Honeywell and Fictiv helps solve this challenge. Honeywell Aerospace's manufacturing engineering team leverages Fictiv's Digital Manufacturing Ecosystem to quote in minutes instead of days and parts in weeks instead of months, with the goal of reducing cycle times by 50%.

“It's very exciting if we can find a partner like Fictiv,” said Hobgood. “They do a fantastic job of connecting my needs as a customer with those suppliers who have the capabilities, the right competitive costs and the capacity to build my product and get it to me in a very fast cycle time.”

“They do a fantastic job of connecting my needs as a customer with those suppliers who have the capabilities, the right competitive costs and the capacity to build my product and get it to me in a very fast cycle time.”
– Jon Hobgood, vice president, advanced manufacturing and automation at Honeywell
Achieving 7x faster turnaround times for the RE100 APU

In a recent program, Fictiv enabled Honeywell Aerospace's production engineering team to achieve seven times faster turnaround times for a critical component in the RE100 Auxiliary Power Unit (APU).

Honeywell's RE100 Auxiliary Power Unit delivers world-class flexibility and reliability for small to medium aircraft. Credit: Honeywell

Traditionally, a revision of this part in the APU would require a complete refactoring of the part with a production time of 22 weeks.

Instead, Honeywell used Fictiv Enterprise to quickly CNC mill the part in just 3 weeks, using 3 steps:

Optimize for Manufacturability – Honeywell worked with Fictiv's Design for Manufacturability (DfM) team to optimize the model for CNC machining, a much faster process than the traditional casting method.
Quote-to-order in minutes – Honeywell engineers used the Fictiv quote-to-order platform to upload and order the revised part in just minutes, instead of waiting days or weeks for a quote.
Fast Delivery – Fictiv then securely matches the order to one of the highly vetted CNC machine shops in its global network for fast production.

Read the full story here…

https://www.fictiv.com/case-studies/honeywell

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