mechanical assembler

cnc machinist

machinist

assembler

operations technician

Woodward, Inc.

What is the best part of working at the company?
The work given is good for self sufficiency, and aside from the aspect of random incoming tasks that may not pertain to your side of the department, is fairly stable.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Management is blind to the team's difficulties among themselves, and the production floor workers often blame the team for its circumstantial unavailability at times. And depending on specific team members... you will be competing for the ability to do your own job.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Hostile and secretive. Personal opinions and different methods of working will muddy your ability to work as a team due to the spiteful nature of certain members of the department, and HR will be of no help in that regard. One disagreement may lead to an unnecessary level of team based difficulties.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Under the right circumstances, a standard day would start off with the initial daily tasks, as long as a big ticket item is not required to be done at start of shift. After that, the team works through the semi frequent tasks, such as weeklies, biweeklies, and any monthly tasks, watching the request system for any services that are needed, and then keeping tabs on any machines that were necessary to be done at other points in the day. Tracking and logging services, and taking care of incoming relevant deliveries and checking on various other collective tasks, finishing off the day with some standard housekeeping and final walk arounds.
However, in my experience as someone who needed to fight for the opportunity to do my job, management began relegating the daily tasks to individual members, in turn, allowing the team to remain divided to an unprofessional degree. My daily work was forged by my own attempts to retake my position from my team, at which point, I was in charge of a select model of machine, which would be handled by me after the daily tasks if they were assigned to me. After that, I would double check the work of my peers and see if i was needed, before looking for other, less consistently necessary tasks. After that, I would end up forced away from the other aspects that were required of my position by my teammate, and would look to adjacent departments for more work within the confines of my management-neglected lack of promised certifications. On my end there was an unnecessary amount of downtime simply due to the fact that the tasks that I should've been allowed to be included in for the sake of my own position and learning, was not allowed by the problematic team member that created the hostile work environment in the first place.

Woodward offers a fair amount of freedom to work independently, with minimal supervision. Approximately 15% of the workforce can be hostile, but it's manageable by identifying and avoiding those individuals. While 85% of coworkers are good people, the overall workforce is low-skilled, allowing the company to pay bottom-market wages.

The company lacks passion for its products or industry and prioritizes profit over employee satisfaction and quality workmanship. Performance reviews and reflection periods seem superfluous, as everyone receives the same raise annually, irrespective of accomplishments or failures. Processing raises takes an unusually long 3-4 months and is not eligible for back-pay. Human Recourses is unable to process raises during the months of Aug-Jan so if you are scheduled for a raise during that time period you just have to wait until January. This wait period is not eligible for back-pay. 

Paid holidays are consistently reduced, with Christmas Eve removed in 2024. Even major holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving offer only two days off, with the stipulation that you work an extra 8 hour shift the weekend before the holiday. So in reality you're only getting one day off. Mandatory overtime, including Saturdays, has been ongoing for over two years. However, it doesn't address production issues caused by logistical and managerial problems. Despite working overtime for years we have not caught up on production. I doubt more overtime is the answer but Woodward will certainty try.

During downtime, employees are required to stand around, with efforts to combat this through extensive cross-training seen as a way to extract more productivity at lower costs and keep employees busy no matter what. Overtime is still expected even if there is no work. Upper management exhibits reactionary measures, often introducing radical changes that are quickly abandoned.

Woodward's introduction of a weekend shift turned into a bait-and-switch, with employees initially opting for a 3x12 hour shifts, only to be forced into additional days due to overtime needs. Overall, trust in Woodward is not recommended due to its questionable practices and lack of genuine concern for employee well-being.

I was fortunate to work for other aerospace companies prior to Woodward or I may have assumed this to be the norm. It is not. 
Woodward is the Walmart of the manufacturing world.

Most of the people are fun to work with and willing to share their knowledge. This company will make you work whatever overtime and most Saturdays to meet shipment needs. 

Since the bean counters took control of the business ~25 years ago, this company strives to just be slightly below average on pay and benefits. They have intentionally cut all of their benefits to be par with the lowest industry standards that the thought they could get away with. But, the bean counters have been able to keep their stock prices and dividends at an above average return, which keeps the stockholders and upper management happy. Upper management's bonus (member incentive pay) is directly tied to the companies stock performance. So, if the company stock does well, upper management's bonus (member incentive pay) is significantly higher than the worker's bonus (member incentive plan). However, the vast majority of the employees' (members') bonus is intentionally setup to stringently cap / control their bonus (member incentive pay). If the companies' stock does unexpectedly good in any one year, the companies' board members can and will intentionally reduce the worker member's incentive payout.

If you want Woodward to pay for education reimbursement, there is a big catch in this policy to be wary of. If you take their money and you don't get a full degree and if you don't stay 5 year after your diploma, you will have to pay it all back to them when you leave the company. So, where is the incentive to take a few college level courses to get ahead in your career? Because, you will be forced to pay it all back if you ever leave the company for whatever reason life throughs at you.

They have increased their training programs but, they are still very generic. They have it to get government funding.

What they call 100% of pay range is what everyone else would call 50% of pay range. If you are at the bottom of the pay range then, you can expect a decent raise. But, once you hit this midpoint of the pay range, good luck getting a pay raise over 2 or 3% to keep up with inflation. The companies' standard pay increase is intentionally setup this way.

Wasn’t the worst job but also has a lot of room for improvement. The micromanagement from certain supervisors can drive you batty and the culture can be very backstabby and cut throat when it comes to non conformance reports. A lot of finger pointing and no one wants to take accountability out of fear of poor performance reviews. Upper management let’s **** roll downhill so to speak. As a corporate entity, Woodward seems to propagate the trend -as it seems many corporations do- of attempting to extract the most out of it’s employees without much in return, you will be required to perform duties above one’s paygrade, out of one’s job description. As an Op Tech you are opted into an obligational tier based level progression system. Not meeting specific requirements for level progression looms the potential for termination.  Requirements for MAINTAINING one’s level and progression include annual process improvement projects while also attempting to balance sometimes unrealistic workloads. In theory it doesn’t sound too bad on paper, but the execution of these projects are heavily laden with buerocratic red tape, and headaches. It takes time away from production to have a pretty presentation to someone who gets paid to draft up said projects. *cough* not to mention many employees draft up bs that doesn’t need fixing just to have done something. When it comes to actual production a lot of cherry picking occurs if you know how to work the system...so if things look good in the system, laziness can look like excellence and excellence can look like laziness. It really depends on what orders are at one’s disposal and who you share the workload with. Again, backstabbery and cultural issues. That being said there were some great people that work for this company that are aware of the bs that will help you get through the day. The company offers great benefits and the pay is decent-ish. 

This place is by far the worst machine shop I have ever stepped foot into; from management to the work culture to the day to day tasks and being micromanaged to death, I wouldn’t recommend this place to anyone who didn’t need a job. If you have kids and with make use of the healthcare plan then it’ll be worth the day to day struggle. But otherwise go somewhere else. The management will bully you over any mistakes made, regardless if you were at fault (I.e. tools breaking, bad material, etc) but it you try to take it to HR they will tell you, you were the problem and you’ll be punished regardless of their “promise of no retaliation”. You WILL work overtime. They promise it’s rare but it most definitely it’s apart of the job. We went from having 2 shifts: 4/12s and 3/12s and they hired some big shot who decided he wants everyone working 8s, asked no one and changed all of our shifts, got rid of weekends and now we work 5-6/8s which is the same hrs we worked before but 1-2 extra days. So I make less money now and work more often ... Yay ... and they get shocked when you want to use you vacation because they expect you to basically commit your whole life here. Everyone is miserable.  If you do decide to still apply After all of that^ make sure your asking price is high because the “raises” we get yearly don’t keep up with inflation and job progression is nonexistent. You will Barely get further than the day you were hired so try to get a high offering price cause after that it’ll be nothing but empty promises and quarterly disappointment. The best way I can describe this place is by my management alone. I’ve had 5 supervisors and 3 managers come and go because they were either fired or they couldn’t manage properly since they had no manager/machinist experience. 

I Totally Agree With Anonymous,  This Company Was A Good Company Until Woodward Aquired It.  They Have Consistantly Taken Every Incentive Away To Work There. Now Its A Hostile Work Enviroment With A Culture Of Fear And Mistrust. I Was There For 8 Years And I Should Had Left Long Ago. Their Constantly Moving People Around. Typically Management Is In Meetings Every Other Day Crunching Numbers For Reports Then On The Shop Floor To Demand Unrealistic Ship Dates, Specifically In Electronics and Repair Dept. Where I Had 4 Different Supervisors In One Year, and Moved Back And Forth Between Repair And Production Depts. Because Of Office Politics. Engineering Support Is Them Arguing With Supervisors and Planners. The Ops Manager Is The Worst And  Expects Inexperienced Assemblers to Test With O-Scopes And DMM's and Techs To Assist With Assembly For Production. Supervisors Dont Even Have A Understood Proceedure To Order Parts For Replacement From Inventory, They Dont Have A Established Proceedure For Training. All Training Is Heresay Between Techs. And Now Because They Cant Manufacture A Qualitiy Product They Are Farming Out The Work To A Third Party Company To Make The PCB's.  How They Get Away With On Time Delivery Of 40%  From Their Customers Is Unbelievable. Its No Secret To Employees That Customers Are Showing Up Almost Daily To Police There Products In Assembly. There Profits Are Increasing Probably  Due to Annual Price Increases. Shipments Are Constantly Being Missed. 
Again ....Avoid This Place

the benefits and money are good. lots of overtime every week and most Saturdays voluntary occasionally mandatory. its easy once you get it downpacked but the training was terrible. I don't know if it was just my department or what but once I got to the floor I was basically on my own. the workers who have been there for the longest are expected to do double the work trying to train you and get as many parts down the line as possible, so basically it's virtually impossible for you to get any training not to mention most of the workers were upset about the company betraying them over bonuses that they didn't even want to bother with training you. why wouldn't you just have one designated person to train the new people instead of making them do double the work trying to get as many parts down the line as possible? like what?? how do you get proper training like that? the whole system of transferring into a new hire was complete chaos. my supervisor didn't know anything, HR doesn't know anything either. any answer they give you is either I don't know or just a vague answer that doesn't answer anything at all. any question you have about working there basically can't be answered because nobody knows anything. I've had to just lead my own way. it's whatever it's a simple job but they really do the bare minimum with the new hires that would be expected at any job you start and don't explain anything about how their company works and good luck if you have questions about any of it because nobody has an answer for you

This job can be repetitive depending on what you're doing. Your attitude and work ethic have a massive impact on where you end up and what they have you do (as it does at most companies). I'm currently a Mechanical Assembler, and I've been given extra responsibilities and opportunities because I work my butt off, show up on time, ask questions and own my mistakes if I make them. Now, my job is not as repetitive. I work on units that have been damaged and need repairs, and that makes the day go by much quicker. 

Supervisors and Specialists have been very kind and supportive, giving me any tools and advice I need to do my job. Overtime is great and is voluntary. They're fairly lenient when it comes to taking time off and sick days. 

The culture here is good, but just like any other place, be careful in who you decide to become friends with. 

Assemblers are in the Union, but not much happens as far as I've seen. Hopefully they're honest and upright. 

Benefits/Vacation are fantastic from day 1. 

I don't have enough experience yet to say whether or not raises/promotions are fair, but I have a feeling they will be. 

The hardest part about this job is simply the commute for me. I live about an hour away, and traffic is a nightmare on the way home. 

The most enjoyable part of this job is there's always something new to learn. Aviation is a massive industry and in my honest opinion, no one can know everything about it. However, you can try!

I actually started my job here as a senior machinist. Right off the bat the 1st week onboarding was great, I felt welcomed excited etc. My  first week they put me on the lathe department which is my most experience. My impression was same as other places there are nice and watch out co workers. I was already under the impression during training noatter what I do, I will not make it to that delartment because of internal seniority politics and I was right. I got pulled out out of nowhere and thrown into swiss department which I didn't mind at all. I trained, setup operated, work well with others and even made friends for almost 1 year.  At this point I was actually happy to be there until they started hiring "associates" code for cnc operators with no experience $18 per hour compared to me almost $30. The new CEO was overhauling woodward's production and the goal was reducing current time and cut it in half. Keep in mind we make parts for airplanes and defense industry its crucial we take our time to reduce scrap and actually machine very accurate parts. Part of the new Ceo 's brilliant plan of cutting 50% of production time and its so obvious is to replace high earning machinist into operators. So they found a way to terminate 3 people out of fixable technicality in order to reach their goals. It was the best thing that happened to me because it opened up more doors of opportunity for me.

Great job knowledge, skills and abilities and understanding of Military and Pacific Value Stream. Achieved high volumes of production and completing jobs on a timely basis and working overtime when needed. Living values, great respect for individuals, relates well to and respects all employees, costumers, consumers and others outside the organization. Builds appropriate rapport. Builds constructive and effective relationship. Uses diplomacy and tact. Confident but not arrogant. Team player and can quickly find common ground and solve problems for the good of both and every party involved. Conducts daily business activities with honesty, integrity and highest ethical behavior. Well following company policies. Acts with customers in mind.Understands importantance of customer satisfaction. Delivers on goals in timely manner. Accountable work style is effective and productive in terms of time management. Sets objectives and priorities and is able to follow up on commitments on a daily basis.Committed to providing the highest quality products and services that meet the requirements of the internal and external customers while added to continuous improvement. Result driven consistently and on time. Committed to navigating obstacles to achieving results.

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