GM, HP Partner To Expand Automaker's IT

General Motors and HP Team Up on IT Transformation

Multi-year agreement includes project services, software

GM Tech Center-Warren, MI

DETROIT and PALO ALTO, Calif., Oct. 18, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- General Motors and Hewlett-Packard Co. announced today new multi-year project services and software contracts that will accelerate GM's ongoing IT transformation efforts and deliver seamless, global services and products throughout the automaker's operations. 

These agreements provide GM a cost-neutral solution in which 3,000 HP employees already working on GM's business will transition to the auto company's employment rolls.

"These agreements with HP will enable us to accelerate the progress of our IT transformation by delivering increased innovation and speed of delivery to our GM business partners, and reduce the cost of ongoing IT operations," said GM Chief Information Officer Randy Mott. "Transforming our internal IT operations will give us the resources, tools and flexibility we need to provide better services and products to our global GM customers." 

As previously announced, GM is moving from a highly out-sourced to a largely in-sourced business model, changing the mix so more employees are focused on innovation rather than operations. As part of this, GM has announced new IT innovation centers in Austin, Texas, and Warren, Mich., with the locations of two more centers yet to be announced. 

"GM is an automotive icon and HP values the strategic partnership we have had for more than two decades," said Mike Nefkens, HP acting Global Enterprise Services leader. "We look forward to helping GM deliver even greater products and services to market."

GM also has purchased HP's industry leading IT Performance Suite, Enterprise Security Suite, Vertica and Autonomy Software, all of which will further accelerate the transformation of applications development, support, and high-performance operations computing capabilities.

"GM needed a solution to provide confidence, insight and agility to perform better," said George Kadifa, executive vice president, HP Software.  "They didn't need to look any further than HP's Performance Suite and are the first customer to purchase the full suite of software to enable their business."

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Author’s note: This is the latest chapter in the renaissance of General Motors. The most important part of this announcement is that GM is hiring internally, rather than outsourcing. This should be great news for everyone in Detroit, Michigan, the Great Lakes region, in fact the entire U.S.

Insourcing and reshoring are two trends that  I’ll have more on in the days ahead, as I head into the final production stage of my next book, Manufacturing Renaissance.

I would also like to invite you to check out Last Chance Mile: The Reinvention of an American Community. Medical device manufacturing plays a large role in the first book to focus on Grand Rapids, Michigan and its Medical Mile. 

Last Chance Mile is available at Schuler Books & Music in downtown Grand Rapids and on 28^th Street in Kentwood, at the Abbott Press online bookstore and at www.rodkackley.com

Hot Chrysler Cars: Automaker Finds Its Way

For those of us, like me, who got our licenses in the mid-1970s, just in time for the collapse of Motor City design and really the beginning of the collapse of the Detroit Three, the new designs are a real breath of fresh air.
Chrysler will be showing off some very hot cars in Las Vegas: This time, we are all hoping that what happens in Vegas doesn't stay in Vegas.

When the 2012 Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) Show takes place in Las Vegas, Oct. 30 – Nov. 2, enthusiasts will see 24 "Moparized" Chrysler Group LLC vehicles on display at the ultimate aftermarket show.

Jeep Wrangler Sand Trooper

The Dune-in-Matte color, four-door Jeep Wrangler serves as a showpiece for the company's new portfolio of high-end, hard-core Jeep performance parts.

The Sand Trooper is powered by the new 5.7-liter HEMI® V-8 conversion kit. The conversion kit pumps out 375 horsepower and 410 lb-ft. of torque. Paired with the power of the HEMI are front and rear portal axles, providing an extra 5 inches of lift to boost ground clearance capabilities.

Dodge Charger Juiced

Imagine a modern-day take on a custom street rod, mated with an emissions-friendly powerplant and a bountiful array of Mopar parts and accessories which demonstrate what the average owner can create. That's the Dodge Charger Juiced.

SRT Viper

The new 2013 SRT Viper isn't just the ultimate super car. It's also the ultimate super car for accessories and performance parts, thanks to Viper owners who love to customize their Snake. The "Moparized" 2013 SRT Viper is a showcase for what may be done with a little imagination and a lot of Mopar products.

Fiat 500 Beach Cruise

A playful take on the West Coast car customizer vibe, with a unique and entertaining surf motif, is the aim of the Fiat 500 Beach Cruiser. The unique charcoal, matte-finish grey Fiat 500 features a widened body (by a foot for both the front and rear) with old school-style fender flares that cover aluminum Mopar prototype wheels. Red paint brightens the rims, as well as satin and brushed center caps that give a clean look while hiding the lug nuts.

These new Chrysler products are part of the Manufacturing Renaissance that I will be documenting in my next book, due out this fall. 

My first book, Last Chance Mile, is on sale now at Schuler Books & Music in downtown Grand Rapids, or can be ordered from any local bookseller. 

The story of the reinvention of Grand Rapids, Mich. is also available at your favorite online retailer. Here is a direct link to Last Chance Mile at Abbott Press. 

 

Reinventing Manufacturing: Growing Jobs at Ford

*Michigan Assembly Plant (MAP) is the first plant in Michigan and the first auto plant to earn Plant of the Year honors from ASSEMBLY Magazine

*ASSEMBLY Magazine cites MAP's flexible, green manufacturing and transformation from producing large SUVs to fuel-efficient small cars

*Following a $550-million transformation, MAP now produces the Focus, Focus ST and Focus Electric, and is ramping up production of the C-MAX Hybrid and C-MAX Energi plug-in hybrid.

Ford Motor Company's Michigan Assembly Plant has been named Assembly Plant of the Year by ASSEMBLY Magazine. It is the first time an automaker, as well as a plant in Michigan, has earned the honor.

"MAP is an example of Ford manufacturing at its best – a flexible facility that is using a highly trained work force to build fuel efficient vehicles in an environmentally friendly manner," said Jim Tetreault, Ford vice president of North America Manufacturing. "We are proud that our hard work has been recognized by experts who know manufacturing."

The goal of the Assembly Plant of the Year award is to identify a state-of-the-art facility that has applied world-class processes to reduce production cost, increase productivity and shorten time to market or improve product quality, said Austin Weber, senior editor for ASSEMBLY Magazine.

"We chose MAP as our 2012 winner because the plant is a showcase for flexible, green, lean manufacturing," Weber said. "We were also impressed that Ford took a plant that produced large SUVs and turned it into a state-of-the-art facility that makes fuel-efficient small cars. That's not something that we often see in manufacturing."

Following a $550-million transformation, Ford re-opened MAP in early 2010 with production of the 2012 Focus. Ford has since added the Focus Electric zero-emission battery electric vehicle and the Focus ST performance model. The company is now ramping up production of the C-MAX Hybrid and C-MAX Energi plug-in hybrid.

In May, MAP added a third production crew with 1,200 new jobs. The plant currently employs 5,170 workers.

 

 

GM And My Hometown

Growing up in Warren

Warren, Mich. That is where I grew up and every neighborhood in what was Michigan's fourth largest city in the 1960s and 1970s was like its own little small town.
My neighborhood--my hometown--was known as the Green Acres subdivision. It was built, and we all lived, in the shadow of the GM Technical Center.

Of course the 21st century has not been kind to General Motors and as a result the first years of this millennium have been more than dismal for Warren. The Great Collapse of Manufacturing in Michigan was especially rough on Metro Detroit, as I will detail in the first chapter of Manufacturing Renaissance, due out this fall.

However, some great news came from GM today for Warren:

GM Opens New IT Innovation Center in Michigan

Renaissance Center

Approximately 1,500 high-tech jobs to be created

 General Motors is opening an Information Technology Innovation Center in Warren, Mich., and expects to hire up to 1,500 high-tech employees over the next several years to support the company’s new approach to IT services.

The GM Michigan Innovation Center is the second of four planned Innovation Centers in the United States. GM last month announced the opening of the first facility in Austin, Texas, where 500 new IT jobs will be created.
 “We’re currently seeking the next generation of game-changers to help us usher in a new age of automotive innovation at GM,” said GM Chief Information Officer Randy Mott.
The IT Innovation Centers play a critical role in GM’s overall IT business strategy. GM is looking to create and deliver IT services with new capabilities that will help the company improve its performance, drive down the cost of ongoing operations and increase the level of innovation delivered to GM customers. To support this approach, GM is moving to a more in-sourced IT business services model as part of its overall IT Transformation.
“GM is executing an IT best practice by insourcing IT services and making them a strategic part of assuring GM remains a fast-moving leader,” said Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group in San Jose, Calif. “This is also one of the best opportunities for IT professionals to work in the automotive industry.”
Available positions include software development, project management, database management and business analysis. GM is recruiting recent college graduates and experienced professionals for these jobs.
GM recruiters are visiting U.S. college campuses this fall and participating in local job fairs targeting IT professionals. For more information and to apply for one of these positions, potential job candidates should visit http://www.careers.gm.com/itjobs.

Warren, Mich. is reinventing itself just as Grand Rapids, Mich has been doing. However, my hometown is doing it without the billionaire families that my adopted hometown has come to depend on.
What happens when the 1% drags the 99% into the 21st century? That is the story in Last Chance Mile, available from your local bookstore, your favorite online retailer and www.rodkackley.com.

Bringing It Home: Reshoring the Roar

Manufacturing is coming back to the U.S. Some new empirical evidence as been added to what we are hearing anecdotally from manufacturers of all sizes.

Here's a press release fromMichigan State University:

EAST LANSING-- Increasingly, U.S. firms are moving or considering moving their manufacturing operations back to domestic soil from overseas, finds a new study co-authored by a Michigan State University supply chain expert.

Fueling the trend are rising labor costs in emerging countries, high oil prices and increasing transportation costs, global risks such as political instability and other factors, said Tobias Schoenherr.

 “Going overseas is not the panacea that it was thought of just a decade or so ago,” said Schoenherr, assistant professor in MSU’s top-ranked Department of Supply Chain Management. “Companies have realized the challenges and thus are moving back to the United States.”

The study found that 40 percent of manufacturing firms believe there is an increased movement of “reshoring” – or moving manufacturing plants back to the United States from countries such as China and India. While the results differed by industry, the trend was led by aerospace and defense; industrial parts and equipment; electronics; and medical and surgical supplies.

“We were surprised by the large percentage of firms indicating that they are considering reshoring,” Schoenherr said.

The study also found that nearly 38 percent of companies indicated that their direct competitors have reshored.

 In addition to rising costs and global risks, Schoenherr said companies are concerned with the erosion of intellectual property overseas and product quality problems, which can be difficult to fix when dealing with multiple time zones and language and cultural barriers.

 “From my communication with some firms, I also sense a genuine desire to help the U.S. economy and to bring back jobs,” Schoenherr said.

 The study, sponsored by the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals, is based on a survey of 319 firms.

 Schoenherr’s co-authors were Wendy Tate and Kenneth Petersen of the University of Tennessee and Lisa Ellram of Miami University (Ohio).

Author's note: I will have more on this in Manufacturing Renaissance, scheduled to be published later this fall. For a sneak preview, you will find a three-part series posted at www.rodkackley.com, "Restore The Roar." 

Hope you enjoy it - Rod