The Problem
Designing a car is a complex and lengthy task. Take, for example, General Motors (GM). Each model created needs to go through a frontal crash test. So the company builds prototypes that cost about one million dollars for each car and tests how they react to a frontal crash. GM crashes these cars, makes improvements, then makes new prototypes and crashes them again. There are other tests and more crashes. Even as late as the 1990s, GM crashed as many as 70 cars for each new model.
The information regarding a new design and its various tests, collected in these crashes and other tests, has to be shared among close to 20,00 designers and engineers in hundreds of divisions and departments at 14 GM design labs, some of which are located in different countries. In addition, communication and collaboration is needed with design engineers of the more than 1,000 key suppliers. All of these necessary communications slowed the design process and increased its cost. It took over four years to get a new model to the market.
The Solution
GM, like its competitors, has been transforming itself into an e-business.This gradual transformation has been going on since the mid 1990s, when internet bandwidth increased sufficiently to allow Web collaboration. The first task was to examine over 7,000 existing legacy IT systems, reducing them to about 3,000, and making them Web-enabled. The EC system is centered on a computer-aided design (CAD) program from EDS (a large IT company, subsidiary of GM). This system, known as Unigraphics, allows 3-D design documents to be shared online by both the internal and external designers and engineers, all of whom are hooked up with the RDS software. In addition, collaborative and Web-conferencing software tools, including Microsoft’s NetMeeting and EDS’s eVis, were added to enhance teamwork. These tools have radically changed the vehicle-review process.
To see how GM now collaborates with a supplier, take as an example a needed cost reduction of a new seat frame made by Johnson Control. GM electronically sends its specifications for the seat to the vendors product data system. Johnson Control’s collaboration systems (eMatrix) is integrated with EDS’s Unigraphics. This integration allows joint searching, designing, tooling, and testing of the seat frame in real time, expediting the process and cutting costs by more than 10 percent.
Another area of collaboration is that of crashing cars. Here designers need close collaboration with the test engineers. Using simulation, mathematical modeling and a Web-based review process, GM is able now to electronically “crash” cars rather than to do it physically.
The Results
Now it takes less than 18 months to bring a new car to market, compared to 4 or more years before, and at a much lower design cost. For example, 60 cars are now “crashed” electronically, and only 10 are crashed physically. The shorter cycle time enables more new car models, providing GM with a competitive edge. All this has translated into profit. Despite the economic slowdown, GM’s revenues increased more than 6 percent in 2002, while its earnings in the second quarter of 2002 doubled that of 2001.
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