“Ten years ago, we were much more regionally based,” says Mary Barra, vice-president of global HR at GM, a US-based automaker. Now the company is benefiting from a strong push towards global integration. The objectives are saving money, responding faster to the market, speeding up the innovation process and producing better cars. How does the company operate globally?
GM maintains six “engineering centres”, in South Korea, China, India, Brazil, Germany and the US. These act as magnets for talent in their regions, cultivating relationships with top schools. But engineers are not restricted to regionally based projects. Teams are assembled from across the engineering centres to share in the development and design of new vehicles and sub-systems.
The global team meets face-to-face at the start of each project—usually in the country where the innovation or new car will be rolled out—and again at key milestones. Ms Barra believes that this initial meeting is critical. “It’s building and establishing those relationships up front, making sure you’ve got the team that is working together and has the right common goals, then you leverage the different collaboration technologies effectively,” she says. Using a global engineering platform, as well as common communication tools, the team collaborates remotely throughout the project. Meeting again at project milestones allows the team to see prototypes at work in the target environment.
By meeting initially in the country of rollout, the team can learn from local GM engineers the market’s particular challenges, such as road quality. When complete, the newly engineered component or vehicle is tested in that market. “We can then reuse that engineering solution on other vehicles around the world,” says Ms Barra. “It not only lowers our cost, but also gives us higher confidence. We’ve validated and tested, so we’re going to have higher quality.”
Cars are becoming more technically complex. There are constant advancements in electronics and alternative propulsion, and high demand for engineers who are expert in the field. Ms Barra believes global collaboration lets GM leverage scarce human resources and innovate more quickly, while its regional engineering centres allow it to leverage knowledge of markets.
