UPTIME MEANS REAL MONEY
GM created a process for responding to major technology problems that includes eight expert centers based in key plants and staffed with specialists of specific software applications, so people know where they can turn for help. The first line of defense is at each plant, but the four global command centers monitor and participate in solving IT problems and coordinate help from the expert centers. "If there's a virus or other problem, we have a lot of expertise here, from the Suns and EDSes and HPs of the world," Gutmann says. "Our top EMC person sits here in the command center."
In the main command center in Pontiac, Mich., past the security guards and down a stark white hallway, network specialists hover around large flat-panel screens, with other screens on the wall tuned to news and weather channels to track events that could affect plants, such as power outages and natural disasters.
Every morning, staffers at the global command centers do "health checks" at plants, hoping to avoid problems within the first two hours of operation caused by maintenance upgrades done during downtime. An AT&T management tool provides a view of the wide area network that connects all the plants, alerting staff to problems using color-coded icons. If the AT&T-operated WAN goes down, the plants are designed to support full vehicle production without WAN connectivity.
A monitoring tool GM calls Change Control Network, running on Microsoft Excel, keeps track of any IT changes at a plant, the potential level of impact on a scale from 1 to 4, and the description of what sort of risks a plant faces if something goes wrong with a change. The view into GM's network is so precise that from a command center, personnel can drill down into supplier links or monitor one of hundreds of thousands of devices.
IT isn't going to put an end to $4-a-gallon gas, fickle consumers, or global competition. But IT plays a part in enabling GM's responses.
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