Pros
GE aviation has a great history and really great products. The company has also got excellent manufacturing operations with a whole host of procedures to cover almost every possible process. As expected for the engine business, quality is the key and GE does have good controls in place to ensure that the parts going into the engine are really well (not perfect by a long shot!)manufactured and assembled. The culture is pretty down to earth and friendly so it is easy to meet people whatever their level. The training is great if you get the right courses - the 2 courses I attended were much better than similar courses I attended while working elsewhere. If you are interested in lean and six sigma you will be supported, though less than before. The financial process is fairly rigourous and is also good for learning about controls that you might not find in other companies. Overall GE Aviation has great talent, whether engineering, production or finance and produces great engines that are incredibly reliable and efficient, and now by moving into systems and composites it is ensuring a place in the forefront for the future.
Cons
The downsides are the lack of HR support that leads to wasted talent (real muda) - in the 4 years of service I never had a conversation with a HR person about my situation even though I did numerous appraisals (EMSs) all of which seemed to go pretty well! I am not a fan of HR in general but there is a need a least for a minimum coverage. It makes you wonder what is going on at these session Cs. The company is a disaster when it come to global operations, being extremely american- centric and especially ohio centric leading to a low level of understanding in all senses of the word when it comes to non americian ops. It is not helped by the US legislation whether export control, boycott, terrorist etc which is very hard to understand how it can be effective - it appears very stupid in a lot of cases. I could give a lot of examples so I am not just making an empty statement. GE aviation management seem to be losing it, to use a common phrase, there are more and more talentless people hogging top management spots, playing musical chairs with the jobs and making speechs that are embarrassingly bad and so very childish. The word leadership makes me shiver as the word is abused in GE aviation and is now almost meaningless. I really hate emails that start by saying the leadership require you do this that or the other!!! What generic leadership is asking me to do this? Common sense and real performance is losing ground to politics and sucking up. Procedures and systems are killing thought and insight. Criticism and open dialogue are being replaced by static reporting and yes sir mentality. Intelligence and hard work are being rolled over by mediocrity and loudmouth metric fillers who cannot run a business but make noise, get noticed and then promoted. The business is complex - it is not manufacturing screwdrivers - if you lean out the business too much and drive out talent along with the cost then GE Aviation is really throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Programmed people are good in some cases but old fashioned high intensity hard working aviation business experts formed not by programming but by vast experience could be also useful. GE depends on its suppliers and customers - I would say suppliers are less than satisfied and would be able to point out a lot of inherent weakness in GE strategy and attitude and customers may become this way in the future. Shareholders are already pretty browned off. Globally there is a myraid of interesting challenges whether it be in Asia, Europe, Middle East etc but GE Aviation is slow to develop the expertise to tackle them. It has suppliers and customers everywhere in the globe so you would expect a better global management team. However this is not the case and it must be an achilles heel. Lucky for GE Aviation the competition is limited to say the least and therefore the empire is not at an immediate risk but in the long term to keep and attract the best engineering, operations or finance talent will be more and more difficult unless something changes. And this just a small very limited overview of the problems! It is hard to see how the famous leadership can improve things as they are probably the biggest problem!