When Customers Talk, Honeywell Listens

The Global Customer Committee (GCC) is voice of the customer on steroids. The committee exists to help Honeywell understand what’s important to business aviation customers and take action to address global and/or regional needs.

“The primary purpose of the GCC is to get customers’ perspectives on what we’re doing well and – just importantly – where we can improve,” said Megan Towne, Customer & Product Support (C&PS) Director for the Americas. “There’s no substitute for hearing directly from the people who use our products every day under real-world conditions.”

Megan represents Honeywell on the Americas GCC. Ghiya Al-Haj-Hasan, C&PS Director for Europe, the Middle East, Africa and India, and Matt Spence C&PS Sr. Manager in Asia Pacific, play similar roles in their regions. They work closely with the GCC chairpersons and members, but it’s important to note that the committees discuss global needs as well as regionally-specific ones.

“One of the strengths of the GCC is its independence,” Ghiya said. “We’ve worked hard to create a climate of trust and open communications, where customers can express their feelings about Honeywell products, services and processes. We have found that GCC members are more than willing to share their thoughts and recommendations, which is just what we want them to do.”

Currently, the GCC has about 70 active members, including pilots and chiefs of maintenance from corporate flight departments, as well as representatives from Honeywell Authorized Service Centers – the companies that sell, service and maintain Honeywell business aviation products and services.

“We’re always looking to strengthen our GCC membership to make sure it represents the broad community of customers who rely on Honeywell solutions globally,” Matt said. “For example, the APAC committee does a great job of making sure that we’re identifying and addressing issues specific to this part of the world. We’re always looking for new members who will contribute their perspective to the process.”

The GCC creates and maintains a rolling action item list (RAIL) of the top 25 issues identified and voted on by committee members. The list helps Honeywell prioritize its efforts and resources, while the GCC is updated on the progress of these actions throughout the year. Since the GCC inception Honeywell has resolved almost 500 items from the RAIL. The current RAIL has 46 items being actively worked, all helping to improve Honeywell products and services for our customers.

For example, the operators reported when setting up to perform an ILS approach on an EPIC equipped aircraft, the FMS would not always tune an ILS. Honeywell accepted this as a GCC RAIL and worked with engineering to determine if there were any issues with the logic or known issues that may cause this.  Honeywell determined that the behavior of the ILS auto tuning is per design but was not well understood.  As a result, Honeywell released a Direct-to newsletter article on the Honeywell Pilot Portal as a way to educate flight crews on when the FMS will autotune the ILS and when it will not.  The committee reviewed the article and agreed this was the answer and closed the RAIL as a result.

The GCC traces its history back to the 1970s and a committee sponsored by the National Business Aircraft Association (NBAA) to focus on technical issues with the TFE731 engine. Over the years, the committee expanded to include other Honeywell mechanical products and eventually avionics products and systems, too.

If you would like to  join the GCC, please fill in this member form and you can make a difference in the aerospace industry.