The fast-talking president and CEO of the $15 billion-revenue Honeywell Aerospace speaks loftily of automation that will let an airplane monitor its own health in flight and beam any fault to its maintenance base, scan the skies and ground for danger, send updates to its destination, and e-mail requests to restock its galley.

"We want to turn the airplane into a source of information and communication that goes beyond nose to tail, to create a gate to gate information system which in turn involves the preplanning, the flight and the post flight activity, that then helps airlines operate more efficiently," Johnson told Show News. "And lastly we can use the e-business tools we embarked on last year to electronically connect all this information. Then we can walk the customer all the way through our own planning system and down the supply chain."

The all-thinking airplane will have spares and supplies ready and waiting as it pulls into the gate-which means it can leave the gate on time. Airlines will benefit through increased utilization and efficiency, maximizing the use of their flying assets as a reduction in delays results in sharply lower airport congestion.

Now the merger of Honeywell's integrated avionics expertise with AlliedSignal's hazard warning, engine and aircraft systems skills has brought that vision several steps closer to reality.

Johnson plans to integrate and synchronize as many of the systems as possible from both companies using what he calls "the spinal cord"-Honeywell's Primus Epic avionics platform. This has already been chosen as the nerve center for the fly-by-wire Embraer ERJ-170 and 190 and Fairchild 728JET family, the Cessna Citation Sovereign business jet, and the Agusta Bell AB139 utility helicopter.

"Furthermore, there are systems within Honeywell that have been used for factory automation that can be connected to the airplane information system" to help an airline more efficiently manage the operation of an airliner, Johnson noted. "We're excited about that combination. The various teams are already working across the families of products to do that."

Integration of the former AlliedSignal and Honeywell products is now under way for the business and regional aircraft manufacturers. Boeing and Airbus have taken note. "There's an exciting set of opportunities that we've discussed with them really about being partners to help their success," said Johnson. "That ranges from sharing Six Sigma best practices, to lessons learned in the merger, to e-business."

Integration of Honeywell with AlliedSignal has also proceeded apace. The combined business has actually grown while both companies experienced massive upheavals prior to approval of the merger last December. "And our customer satisfaction ratings actually improved in that time," noted Johnson.

The two rapidly identified $130 million of internal cost-saving synergies and another $250 million that could be saved by integrating products by business or by customer. The majority of these moves were completed in December, and Johnson expects "all the change to be behind us by the end of the first quarter."

He is optimistic about all Honeywell's markets, citing large commercial aircraft as the only dark spot, but one which should recover in 2001.

Johnson articulates Honeywell's strategy as providing solutions, not products (although customers can buy individual components if that is what they want).
"We are moving from being a provider of products or equipment to being a provider of subsystems, then systems, and then systems that work together," Johnson said. "Then we'll take it up to a higher level around the total solution for our customer, whether its in the airplane or on the ground, and connect it to information and communication, all leading to solving the questions of aircraft reliability and availability."

But we will still be different things to customers who want different solutions. Our opportunity is to be what they want us to be at the time they need it."

By John Morris