Navistar Employee Reviews about "navistar"

Pros

There are some good people at Navistar that are trying to make the company better. Unfortunately, most of the talented individuals have left for greener pastures, as the company as struggled mightily over the past five years. Upper management has tried to make the work environment more fun, even while introducing across-the-board pay cuts. The Lisle campus is beautiful and the cafeteria is pretty good. Relaxed dress code, though not everyone follows it. CEO has good intentions but inherited a tarnished brand from his predecessor's mistakes.

Cons

Simple, this company doesn't know how to make money. The company has only made a profit in 1 of the last 20 quarters or so. Brand reputation is bad across the industry. Very high turnover within engineering. Did you come out of school with a shiny degree looking to apply your knowledge and learn new skills? Then you should go somewhere else. Young engineers are thrown into the fire with no experience, all too often falling back on the "this is how we did it last time" philosophy for designs. Much of engineering management are simply work-trackers and do not have the knowledge to pass on to their subordinates. People with associates degrees can design 3D models and update bills of material, you don't need an engineering degree to do that job. These are my experiences over the course of 4+ years in engineering.

Pros

Navistar provided me numerous opportunities to broaden out my career and get to know the business better. Their products are very complex and enjoyable to develop. The people have a wide range of skill sets required to design, manufacture and support commercial vehicles. The new integrated facilities are sensational with loads of amenities.

Cons

The transportation industry rises and falls with the GDP, so periodic layoffs are part of the whole package. They have lost a lot of the vehicle product development staff during the move to Chicago and are rebuilding the team.

Pros

Navistar is a solid place for new grads to start a careeer with solid pay and great work life balance. Appears hybrid is being implemented

Cons

After a couple of years of 0 to 3 percent raises, you will feel the pressure to leave for a pay bump.

Pros

Working at Navistar Product Development in the year 2012 is an incredible wealth of experience. You can learn something from anyone, whether for good or bad. I find it hard to believe that a person could witness poor management on a grander scale, or as rapidly, as we can at Navistar today. There are so many ways to fail, demotivate people, and concentrate on short term internal victories rather than any kind of long term strategy. This can be an excellent learning experience, which can only lead to success in future roles at other companies.

Cons

Working at Navistar Product Development in the year 2012 is not something most of us are doing as part of a long term career anymore. There are so many stories of various diferent leaders who see their employees as nothing more than a number on a paper. They predicted in 2009 that they'd have 20% retention when they moved PD to Lisle, IL from Fort Wayne, IN. In reality it isn't anywhere near 20%. Navistar went out and hired some talented and completely inexperienced people and replaced their truck PD workforce almost wholesale. They did not, of course, acknowledge this in the Plan. As such they planned to continue full-speed ahead on numerous projects, most of which hit the wall this past summer due to lack of trained staff and lack of functional validation facilities. However the culture does not permit acknowledging issues or mistakes, so we continue on, and we blame those below us for these failures. See also Navistar's emissions strategy, any Google search should help make the issue clear here. If they pull through this enormous challenge they're in the middle of, they may again become great. They are not great now and won't be anytime soon.

Pros

Good pay and benefits is why I stayed over 10 years. For most of the 10 years of my employment Navistar had very week senior leadership with very strong lower level leaders that kept things moving.

Cons

Navistar is plagued with poor leadership. They let some of the best talent in the industry leave and or pushed them out. The only reason quality is a little better is because of ditching the EGR only technology and going to SCR. Nav talks quality buyt lives by the dollar ALWAYS. That is why I'm glad to no longer be associated with them.

Pros

Navistar has a very nice facility and it is an environment that helps to attract new talent. Most co-workers are very friendly. There is a large percentage of young engineers that are motivated to work hard and make their mark.

Cons

The move to consolidate the truck development technology center in Fort Wayne, IN with the engine development in Melrose Park, IL in the Lisle, IL World Headquarters as the new "Integrated Product Development" isn't quite integrated yet. Yes, the teams now sit next to each other, but there has been no changes to merge the different processes and tools together. Financially, they are operating as separate companies, and this is stifling new development. The teams are out of sync with each other. A team on one side of the floor has no sense of urgency, while the team on the other side of the floor is being worked like dogs. Navistar is currently trying to save themselves from the grave and just have some product to sell, but once it can get some core product it needs to establish itself as a leader in quality and technology. New product development hasn't been a focus at Navistar for quite a while. Rumors about layouts and reorgs abound in the cubilces and hallways. There is an unhealthy competition between engineering organizations where it seems one engineering organization will try to make the other look bad to cover up its flaws. There isn't enough teamwork cross-functionally. There is no clear technical career path defined. The systems are too complex and the variation in the product is killing development.

Pros

There are still some good people left at Navistar; but most of the good employees have left. In in order to advance you will need to be employed in Lisle.

Cons

CEO is under pressure from investors. Good old boy network still prevails. Only C&D players left at this company. Little R&D investment for products. At least 3 years behind the competition, Advanced EGR Engine strategy has resulted in significant downtime of trucks which has affected customers and dealers.