Honeywell VP Heather Robinson enjoys her safety-focused work

Heather Robinson is Vice President of Integrated Supply Chain for Fire & Security at Honeywell Building Technologies. She enjoys being part of Honeywell’s Women’s Employee Network (HWEN) and has a thriving career with the company.

Work with a meaningful purpose

Heather’s work prepares Honeywell clients to be ready for the unthinkable. The time to detect a fire is when it is just a wisp of smoke. That’s exactly what Honeywell’s systems do, so Heather and her teams get to work with mission-critical applications that help meet fire threats via integrated detect and response.

Heather’s role is to is to run the factories that manufacture the products that are part of the Honeywell Fire Detection Systems. Heather’s work provides a meaningful purpose because fire detection systems alert people when smoke, fire, or carbon monoxide emergencies are present. “One of our most important goals is to make Honeywell’s products in a safe environment for our workers with the highest quality in a timely manner for our customers. Our goals also include controlling our costs so we can provide value for our customers and profit for the company,” explains Heather.

The manufacturing of these products aligns with Honeywell Building Technology’s priorities of helping its customers ensure their facilities are safe, energy efficient, sustainable, and productive. The focus of Heather’s work, and that of her colleagues, is always clear.

The industry Heather works in sees key trends and changes that drive the fire detection business. One such trend is increased demand for advanced smoke detection systems, especially for highly asset intensive and essential businesses. Additionally, the industry is heavily driven by increasing safety regulations that exist globally. Honeywell sells to the commercial sector, so the regulations to be met are abundant.

Building on past career responsibilities

Previously, Heather was Vice President for the mechanical operations for the America’s in Honeywell’s Aerospace division. In this role, Heather was responsible for the cost and operational performance for the manufacturing of jet propulsion engines, auxiliary power units and aircraft braking systems, environmental control systems and components.

To drive continued year-over-year improvement, Heather created process teams across the ten factories she oversaw in the US and Mexico. These teams worked together to share past accomplishments for replication in new areas and to pull together the collective expertise they had to solve problems that remained in multiple sites.

“Teams were either focused on manufacturing processes such as the welding team or machining team or were focused on key categories such as recycling opportunities. Team leaders were top talent and often identified as our next-up site leaders. The teams were very successful in driving operational productivity, improving our succession planning, and creating a more cohesive culture in our division,” explains Heather.

“I had a lot of fun recognizing the accomplishments of these teams and watching new leaders grow.”

Opportunity to work across major divisions

Heather has always been appreciative of the opportunities at Honeywell.

“One of the more unique things about Honeywell, is that the company proactively offers you the ability to work across the major divisions called Strategic Business Groups (SBG). These groups, Aerospace, Building Technologies, Performance Materials and Safety & Productivity Solutions, encourage its people to work in different functions in these businesses globally. I have personally worked in two of these groups, Aerospace and Building Technologies in the 4.5 years that I have been at Honeywell,” says Heather.

Enjoying family time outside her work schedule

When Heather is not working, she prefers to spend quality time with her daughter, Hannah, and husband, Eric. “We rescued a puppy this past Christmas season and we’re all enjoying this new addition to our family,” remarks Heather.