InnovationReport2017V37

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Lisa R. Miller meets GM Chairman and CEO Mary Barra as Paul Checkowsky looks on
before a town hall in Roswell, Georgia

Excellence in IT Award winner Hyangsook George Wu and Amar Thiagarajan Luan Arnold, an IT Live Tech, works at the IT Live center in Austin, Texas
Moon, SAP analyst with GM Korea support Galileo in Austin, Texas

Finance IT team celebrates GM Safety Week in new office in Brazil Chris Shunk and Jakey Hoffman support Work Smarter initiative
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

03 35 41

Randy Mott Message The Sky is the Limit for Galileo Innovation Centers

03 Randy Mott Message 17 Global Corporate Functions 35 The Sky is the Limit for Galileo
19 Information Security and IT Risk
05 Global Product Development IT 33 Global Database, Architecture
Management
07 Manufacturing, Global Purchasing and and Tools
21 Corporate Development and
Supply Chain, Customer Care and 37 IT Global Data, AI and Analytics
Aftersales, Quality and Workplace Safety IT Global Mergers and Acquisitions
Services
09 Global Sales, Marketing and 23 A Smooth Transition for PSA
25 Global Operations Services 39 Office of the CIO
Customer Experience
27 Global End User Experience 41 Innovation Centers
11 Global Connected Customer Experience
29 Global Telecommunications 49 GM Rides
13 Global Finance IT
31 Global Infrastructure 51 Excellence in IT Awards
15 Global SAP Architecture and Services
53 GM IT Leadership

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A MESSAGE FROM

RANDY MOTT

SENIOR VP, GLOBAL
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
AND CIO

While 2017 was another great year for General Motors and Information
Technology, I am especially excited about our future. With a solid
foundation in place, our team is hitting its stride.
Our state-of-the-art enterprise data centers, modern innovation
centers and many other IT building blocks put in place over the last
few years provide a firm footing for the future. But most of all, it’s
our teams that make the difference. We have more to offer than any
third party can compete with. Our environment is steeped in the
latest technology, whether it’s infrastructure, databases, operations,
security or telecommunications. Our bench is deep and experienced
across these domains. Our application development teams have
been entrenched with business partners for years now, building
business acumen every day. We also have a rich mix of experienced IT
professionals and energized new college graduates to help
GM succeed.
This unique combination of profoundly knowledgeable world-class
talent and cutting-edge technology will help us move faster and
develop more innovation than ever before. I call it next-generation
innovation. For us, it’s where the rubber meets the road.
It means unleashing the might of our private cloud Galileo with rapid-
fire infrastructure changes to let developers be developers. It means
using automation to perform thousands of mundane and often
manual tasks to deliver reports and data more quickly and accurately,
providing teams with additional time to work on making our
business better. It means having an experienced team of technology
professionals in-house with the background and expertise to respond

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to immediate needs and deliver long-term solutions across all corners
of the company.
As a result, we are harnessing the power of technology and adding
innovation and efficiency to all areas of the business at a pace
unimagined just a few years ago. We are helping all GM employees
be more productive, providing customers a better experience, and
developing applications and tools that will help propel the future of
mobility – all while ensuring that our networks, systems and data
remain safe, secure and operationally sound.
To be sure, I am proud of our accomplishments in 2017. We delivered
1,374 projects, with 748 for the business worth more than $1.8 billion
in first-year benefits. It’s a particularly impressive achievement given
the volume of work that resulted from the unexpected divestiture of
our Opel/Vauxhall business to the PSA Group. Our team performed
brilliantly – the transition was flawless and I couldn’t be more pleased.
I’m also delighted with our team’s commitment to safety. It’s our top
priority and our results speak for themselves in 2017:
• 2,140 safety-related communications globally
• GM IT employees involved in 164 safety observation tours
• Leadership executed 51 safety review board meetings
• 126 reported safety concerns addressed
As you look through this book I hope you are as impressed as I am with
the breadth and depth of our teams and their many achievements.
Certainly, we have seen a lot of change within GM IT during last few
years and there will be more to come as our teams and technology
evolve and grow. Our work is far from over – there is more opportunity
to improve how we operate and ultimately put more capability in the
hands of our business partners ahead of us than behind us. All of our
efforts to transform GM IT continue to pay off every day, and the door
to next-generation innovation is wide open.
Our story is just beginning.

GM Chairman and CEO Mary Barra and Global CIO Randy Mott listen to CIO Les Cope-
land share an update on Maxis at an IT employee broadcast

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GLOBAL PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

NICK BELL

CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER

Global Product Development (GPD) IT plays an important role in
developing the world’s best vehicles by providing critical IT tools,
innovation and technology. GPD IT supports 33,000 users at five
engineering centers, seven global design studios, 35 vehicle and
powertrain test labs, and 10 proving grounds.
CIO Nick Bell oversees the dedicated and customer-focused
organization. “Our team is committed to working with engineers
and other business partners across GM to deliver technology
solutions that drive productivity and efficiency,” Bell said.
The EDGE Program is at the heart of GPD IT’s mission to simplify
engineering desktops. EDGE streamlines complex engineering
processes and integrates systems to deliver newfound efficiency
for engineers around the world. In 2017, GPD IT implemented
smart technology with applications that automatically populated
information, eliminated redundant data entry and brought data
from multiple gold sources into a single application to increase the
productivity of engineers. Tasks that took hours and days are now
done in minutes. Additional improvements are planned in 2018 and
beyond.
Momentum is another GPD IT tool aimed at delivering efficiency
across the engineering community. The new state-of-the-art vehicle
development process management system helps the engineering
community better track the timing and scheduling of tens of
thousands of parts and subsystems used in the production of
approximately 400 vehicle and propulsion programs underway
at any given time for 15,000 application end users. GM will have
a system that integrates components, accessories and propulsion

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systems with vehicle data into a single application to help engineers GPD IT team joins GM CEO Mary Barra to raise STEM awareness in Detroit, Michigan
determine the status of parts and programs, manage their timing
schedules and risk, and make more informed decisions. GPD IT SUPPORTS
“It’s product management on steroids,” Bell said. “The software
required a great deal of customization by our teams to meet 33K
complex product planning and engineering needs.”
The system will be rolled out to all users in 2018. ENGINEERING, GM Vehicle Safety VP Jeff Massimilla at
Also, GPD IT is helping deliver world-class in-vehicle security for DESIGN AND GPD IT town hall
customers. The new cybersecurity Incident and Risk Governance RESEARCH &
(IRG) application expands the toolkit used by product cybersecurity DEVELOPMENT
analysts. Dashboards developed by GPD IT enable product EMPLOYEES
cybersecurity analysts to leverage a single application to view
data from a diverse set of sources. IRG provides the ability to GPD IT team supports the fight against breast cancer, as Nick Bell champions Making
investigate security anomalies in a matter of minutes, allowing Strides walks for IT in Warren, Michigan
for quick analysis and response to potential security threats.
GPD IT continues to enhance IRG to create an industry-leading
cybersecurity business intelligence “big data” platform enabling
GM to respond more quickly to cyber risks in our vehicles.
Business partnerships are important to GPD IT and nowhere is that
more evident than in the team’s relationship with Research and
Development (R&D). Since the team began supporting R&D in late
2016, high-performance computing, hosted in the enterprise data
centers, has delivered newfound speed and efficiency across the
organization and technical support for projects has been embraced.
“Productivity has gone up dramatically in so many different areas,”
said Gary Smyth, executive director, GM R&D. “I don’t know how we
were doing our jobs before they arrived.”
Bell added, “Understanding your business partner’s process is
important for all IT professionals — the differentiation for GPD IT is
the deep technical content of the business. The complex nature of
our cars, the technology our business partners use and the tools we
apply to help them, set us apart from other IT teams.”

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MANUFACTURING, GLOBAL
PURCHASING AND SUPPLY CHAIN,
CUSTOMER CARE AND
AFTERSALES, QUALITY AND
WORKPLACE SAFETY IT

AHMED
MAHMOUD

CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER

CIO Ahmed Mahmoud leads a diverse IT organization and is
passionate about improving every part of the business his team
works with.
“We’re not about making the cars; we’re about making the cars
better. We don’t buy the parts; we make buying the parts more
efficient. We don’t ship the parts; we optimize the logistics. The
whole connection between us and the business is optimization,”
Mahmoud said about his team.
In 2017, Global Manufacturing IT demonstrated this optimization
by supporting the redesign of a materials management portal
that communicates to thousands of GM part suppliers to support
powertrain and vehicle prototype builds. The updated portal, offered
in six languages, optimizes new capabilities for reporting, alerting
and distributing parts to GM warehouses, saving on overtime labor.
“During the first full month, our suppliers increased their part
commitments from 48,000 to 122,000 with advanced shipping
notifications increasing over 125 percent,” Mahmoud said. “The
new system capabilities are also delivering over $7 million in annual
savings to GM.”

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Optimization also came into play with the introduction of a and assembly shops. The new functionalities include production
global sourcing pipeline tool for the Purchasing and Engineering monitoring and in-station footprint quality control, product build
organizations. The IT team supporting Purchasing developed the schedules or instructions, part traceability, and quality inspection
tool to provide creativity teams, managers, planners and buyers and reporting. New paint shop functions included in-process vehicle
with visibility to future sourcing needs, allowing them to establish routing and tracking, and process improvement monitoring. These
effective sourcing strategies, review aggregated supplier spend efforts drove productivity and quality throughout the launch cycle.
and identify economies of scale. By eliminating reliance on manual With safety an ongoing priority, optimization efforts included both
processes like spreadsheets, SharePoint and emails, Purchasing can customers and employees in 2017. Customers benefited from the
now collaborate on future sourcing, with visibility of $50-150 billion Global Field Action Management system, an automated solution
in future spend. to process information for launching and executing product
In March, Global Aftersales Engineering and Customer Care and recalls. The new system automates several manual methods
Aftersales (CCA) IT deployed revolutionary functionality that
delivers software programming updates over the air on large vehicle NEW TOOLS Ahmed Mahmoud supports Texas A&M,
populations, eliminating the need for customers to visit a dealer for IDENTIFY a recruiting school for GM
service.
Additional improvements for customers include the ability to create 275
dealership appointments by way of a mobile device or from a
vehicle, and new dashboard features that offer convenient OnStar POTENTIAL
alerts and diagnostic trouble codes. Customers can also receive ROBOTIC EVENTS
text messages on arriving at a dealership that provides improved
tracking of their visit, and an electronic welcome update. From the CCA IT team tests service technician tools in Austin, Texas
dealership perspective, service providers can now seamlessly view
consumer information such as service history and OnStar vehicle
diagnostic data before opening the hood for work.
Another example of interconnectivity can be found within the
Launch team, with its support for the GM 2020 goal of increasing
earnings before interest and taxes by 30 percent by executing
flawless launches on the 2018 Chevy Traverse and Buick Enclave full-
size crossovers. More than 1,600 plant floor devices were installed
including robots, weld controllers and material call pendants, as
well as over 400 IT devices such as computers, printers, scanners,
servers, and network-related devices.
IT systems provided key functionalities to in-plant process areas
including manufacturing, quality and supply chain for body, paint

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2017 81 29 27

MANUFACTURING IT PROJECTS VEHICLE PROPULSION

BY THE NUMBERS LAUNCHES SYSTEM LAUNCHES

Chevrolet Bolt EV autonomous test vehicles are assembled at the GM assembly plant in Orion, Michigan
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and decommissioned isolated legacy systems in use across the failure criteria, GM can now manage connectivity between vehicle
company. The process works by identifying and organizing vehicle features, engineering systems, subsystems, and manufacturing
identification numbers (VIN) by region or country, then managing, processes, trace vehicle level hazards from systems down through
viewing and reporting on field action status and completion rates design and build, automate alerts and action items, and capture and
with customers. share autonomous vehicle data.
“The benefit behind this new automated solution is that it “Since launching at the Orion plant, the Vehicle Component Trace
improves data accuracy and ensures a reliable exchange of closure scorecard improved component trace data capture compliance from
information with dealerships, while providing data to public-facing 54 percent to 91 percent on the Chevy Bolt EV,” Mahmoud explained.
customer websites for owner access to information,” Mahmoud “The insights we gained into trace process gaps and an accurate
said. “The system integrates data with third-party providers of inventory of trace parts gives GM the ability to improve recall
vehicle owner names and addresses, and enables support for population precision, reduce rework costs and improve customer
enhanced customer engagement and communication notices that satisfaction.”
are targeted at improving customer completion rates on vehicle From an employee perspective, the Workplace Safety IT team
inspection, service and repair.” established analytics dashboards to provide daily workplace safety
Fleet companies also will use the system to communicate with GM data, enabling quick responses to safety related-issues and a vast
regarding specific VINs they claim ownership of in the event of a improvement over previous monthly reports.
field action. To date, the new system has been used to expedite Five hundred users representing global, regional and site safety
safety and product field action management for over 30 million coordinators from GM North America, South America and
vehicles, and to inspect, service and repair over 10 million vehicles. International Operations will have access to a variety of dashboards
Additional collaboration was demonstrated by a cross-functional that include events, injury and illness data, safety-related metrics
team made up of Global Safety, Quality, Manufacturing and Vehicle and other dashboards.
Component and Subsystems, and the Global Manufacturing and “These innovations are just a few of the many, many achievements
Quality IT teams to successfully launch the Vehicle Component our teams have made over the course of the past year,” Mahmoud
Trace scorecard. The scorecard enables plant as well as Safety said. “And for us, innovation means developing something that will
and Quality personnel to efficiently assess the accuracy and enable our business partners to optimize work that did not exist
completeness of key safety-related components installed in there before. We’re in the business of taking technology that exists
GM vehicles. in the world, and enabling it for General Motors.”
With a focus on improving GM products, preventing issues earlier
and enabling closed-loop learning, Quality IT delivered the first-ever Ahmed Mahmoud and staff during a meeting in Austin, Texas
system to integrate all failure mode effects analysis documentation
across the vehicle development lifecycle. The system was deployed
to over 1,000 users in 2017 and will ultimately scale to support
an enterprise user base of over 30,000 users across the company.
Using dashboard capability to measure structural, functional and

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GLOBAL SALES, MARKETING AND
CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

KEN GRAY

CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER

For CIO Ken Gray, who leads Global Sales, Marketing and Customer
Experience (GSMC) IT, business acumen is the most important
ingredient to be successful in IT.
“We’re all about knowing our business and our customers,” Gray
said. ”We’re an IT innovation group, but to sharpen that innovation,
we have to know our customers and business processes even better
than our business partners.”
That’s a tall order for any organization, but the GSMC team is well-
equipped to handle the load on many fronts.
Owner Center offers a glimpse into the breadth of this organization.
The application provides a one-stop-shop for customers to engage
owner services and receive personalized content. It’s currently in 38
markets worldwide.
Using the mobile application or website, customers can quickly
view a variety of information including their maintenance details,
Smart Driver score, and OnStar services and settings. “With
Owner Center, we’ve had 24 deployments throughout the year
and delivered innovation at a much faster pace than we ever have
before,” Gray said. “We’ve taken Owner Center up from the very
beginning days of less than 100,000 customers to over nine million
around the world.”
Loyalty is fundamental to long-term successful growth in any
industry, and the automotive industry is no exception. In 2017,
GSMC deployed a new loyalty program that allows customers to
earn points to redeem for a variety of products or services – from

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free in-car Wi-Fi to discounts on their next new car purchase. The initiative, sponsored by GM North America President Alan Batey.
objective of the program is to reward customers who return to GM Drive2Great is a cultural transformation program launched in
while building greater loyalty and brand engagement. To date, the 2017 to several GM business and IT organizations to foster greater
loyalty program has 3,500 active members with over 18 million accountability and create competitive advantages through seven
points earned and one million points redeemed. key behaviors. The behaviors are: Think Customer, Innovate Now,
Also in 2017, the GSMC team launched the new Accessories Look Ahead, One Team, Be Bold, It’s On Me and Win With Integrity.
Digital Solution that allows online purchasing of GM accessories. Based on the work GSMC has achieved in the past year, it’s apparent
Customers can search the site for accessories that are an the team has embraced the program.
exact match for their vehicle, review product details, warranty “We’re really beginning to blur the lines between the business and
information and other features for each product. Customers can IT and ultimately that helps us deliver a new level of innovation,”
also choose to have their products shipped directly to their homes Gray said.
or installed by a professional at their local dealership. On the
business side, the platform provides innovative solutions for GM’s GSMC DELIVERED GMNA President Alan Batey with GSMC’s
dealers and accessory distributors, allowing them to process orders Shay Tower and Lauri Talbott
with consumers and business partners in one common location. 191
“This is our first foray into the e-commerce side where we’re
working directly on selling to our customers and combining it with PROJECTS IN
our dealership partners as well, which is a big thing,” Gray said.
“Just like in the loyalty program, it allows us to leverage customer 2017
information and market it to their specific vehicles. Whether its floor
mats or a bicycle rack, we can get the accessories that fit to their GSMC’s Drive2Great cultural champions help train team in Rosario, Argentina
car, truck or SUV.”
Quantum was another innovative solution deployed by the team
that provides the foundation for all of GM’s global brand sites and
supports 300 different international websites today. “The tools
we’ve developed through Quantum has made our marketing
agencies much more efficient, reducing their workload by 60
percent,” Gray stated. “Previously, they had to deliver a website for
computer and mobile devices separately; now they only need to
deliver it once and it goes to both platforms. That returns a lot of
investment dollars back to the business."
Virtually all the innovative solutions outlined above cater to the
needs of customers while supporting the strategies of the business
– and all closely align to the objectives behind the Drive2Great

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GLOBAL FINANCE IT

DALE HAZEL

CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER

The Finance Priorities Initiative (FPI), established by GM Chief
Financial Officer (CFO) Chuck Stevens to strategically drive
world-class performance, has been a crucial enabler for Finance IT to
effectively support the GM Finance transformation.
According to Dale Hazel, CIO for Global Finance, “The Finance
leadership engagement behind FPI Systems is a key ingredient in
our multi-year journey to transform business processes, data and
systems, with investments in Close, Consolidation, Planning and
Reporting (CPR); Finance Analytics; and SAP.”
Tom Timko, vice president of GM Global Business Solutions (GBS)
and chief accounting officer, works closely with Finance IT. “Business
transformation of the scale we’re driving in Finance is only made
possible through strong business and IT collaboration, and the
commitment of a ‘no-excuses’ IT team,” Timko said. “Our Finance IT
partners exemplify the GM cultural behaviors of ‘One Team’ and ‘It’s
on Me.’ Through continued leadership engagement and execution of
our strategic roadmaps, we’re making great progress on our drive to
world class.”
Finance IT delivered a key underpinning of CPR with Volume
Repository, providing a centralized, trusted source of volume data
with consistent data definitions for volume types including vehicle
production, propulsion production and wholesale volume. Finance
can now quickly access budgeted, actual, and forecasted volumes
at levels of detail not previously available, improving core business
planning and forecasting.
Account Reconciliation Manager (ARM) is helping Finance drive
efficiencies, lower costs and improve controls by automating 20,000
of 37,000 monthly reconciliations, achieving a 55 percent automation

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rate. The ARM dashboard also provides insights into close process Supporting GBS process efficiencies, Finance IT and GBS teams
status at critical times during month-end close. implemented 22 new Robotic Process Automations (RPA), saving up
Finance IT and eSAP IT teams made significant progress delivering to 18,000 hours of human work. With 77 RPAs in the pipeline at the
the new Global Ledger, another foundational element of the end of 2017, the savings opportunity continues to grow.
transformation. Global Ledger provides standardized and globally Partnering with Audit Services and Risk Management teams, Finance
consistent transactional data at unprecedented levels of detail. This IT deployed a new Strategic Audit and Risk Management solution.
supports faster, more accurate financial reporting and provides a With 2017 deployments for Audit and Operational Risk Management
consistent data foundation for financial planning, forecasting completed, and additional deployments for Sarbanes-Oxley and
and analytics. Strategic Risk Management planned for 2018, this solution is
Variable Profit by VIN (VPxVIN) provides VIN-level visibility into expected to improve visibility and management of risk across GM.
GM’s vehicle profitability, by product, dealer geography, vehicle Nine additional countries were implemented on Wall Street Systems
events and sales channel – providing summarized and VIN-level treasury solution, as completion of the treasury transformation
insights into incentive spend, option contenting and dealer inventory nears. And, significant ongoing investments in the tax and customs
pipeline. VPxVIN is now deployed for 95 percent of all sales volume areas continued to support the evolving GM business as entity
through GM wholly-owned sales entities, with 2017 launches changes, including divestitures, were implemented.
including the U.S., Korea, Brazil and Argentina. “I’m also proud that we achieved a smooth Finance systems
“With the deployment of VPxVIN to the U.S. market, we now have transition to Day One operations for the divestiture of Opel/Vauxhall
better data completeness, accuracy and integrity than ever before to PSA,” Hazel noted. “This unanticipated but substantial initiative
for analyzing VIN-level variable profit,” said GM North America CFO was implemented virtually flawlessly with minimal impact to the
John Stapleton. “VPxVIN’s automated feeds of VIN-level data with Finance IT portfolio, contributing to achievement of key
enhanced trim level detail enables us to drive higher profitability financial objectives.”
through better decisions on vehicle contenting, sales channel mix
and incentives.” FINANCE VISION BENCHMARKS
Supplier Spend Analytics was expanded to the indirect buyer
community, utilizing five years of highly curated purchase order, • Globally common system • 3-7 day consolidated
invoice and spend data representing over 750 million transactions and tools close / forecast
and over $1 trillion in spend. Buyer dashboards enabled indirect
buyers and their managers to access spend, invoices and purchase • Globally common • Daily vs. monthly data
order details, improving decision-making throughout the purchasing processes processing
cycle. New plant indirect materials analytics enabled real-time
inventory management for plant material coordinators. • One version of the truth • Global data traceability /
As part of the End-to-End Product Cost Management program, • Global chart of accounts drill down
Finance IT delivered Program Imperatives Management, enabling • First time quality with
GPD, Global Purchasing and Supply Chain (GPSC) and Finance to • Flip the 70 / 30 paradigm
better manage future vehicle costs for pre-Master Parts List activities. insight (assembly data vs.
• Numbers faster analysis/insights)
• At world-class efficiency
• Drive better decision-making

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GLOBAL SAP ARCHITECTURE AND
SERVICES

RONALD
FRANZ

CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER

The Global SAP Architecture and Services organization is primarily
focused on improving GM’s key business processes through the use
of world-class business software.
“We pride ourselves on our business acumen. Some of our team
members are actually certified public accountants, so they
understand what the business is trying to do and can sometimes
help them define it,” CIO Ronald Franz said about the SAP team
he leads.
The organization adds value to GM business systems on many
fronts. Enterprise SAP (eSAP) tools allow GM to see data in a new
way and IT teams to respond with newfound speed. Late last year,
eSAP software revealed a number of supplier invoices were dated in
a way that payments were already past due or were required within
days of invoice receipt. Within a matter of weeks, working with GBS
partners, the SAP team was able to adjust the system to use the
invoice capture date as the new baseline date for payments. The
adjustment resulted in one-time cash flow improvements of $400
million and an incremental, one-year return on cash of $3.4 million.
“It’s a great example of how our team, together with our GBS
business partner, is providing the detailed data to generate valuable
insights and can respond quickly when action is needed,” Franz said.
In 2017, the last foundational element of the eSAP financial system

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backbone was deployed in North America, Argentina and the GM a process cycle, now takes seconds and when you stack up all of the
Overseas Development Center. The implementation of SAP Vehicle business processes that run in SAP – whether that be management
Accounts Receivable capabilities enables further global capability of requisitions, purchase orders or fixed assets – it becomes a really
extensions for vehicle pricing, billing and incentives. Over $5 billion significant business benefit,” Mahlebashian said.
in open items were successfully transferred to eSAP at the time of Franz added, “I think our partners appreciate our can-do spirit. Our
production deployment. team values the relationships with our business partners and other
Tom Timko, GM vice president of GBS and chief accounting officer, functions. We consistently deliver projects on time and
said, “Outstanding execution, as usual – excellent progress in a very with quality.”
disciplined manner.”
Chris Alvarez, assistant director, Automotive Audit, also The Record-to-Report team deployed SAP Asset Accounting in North America
acknowledged the good work. “This team continues to be the
benchmark on how to run and execute complex projects,” he said. GM Korea IT team tested eSAP for deployment in April 2018
Notable improvements were also realized from the deployment
of the eSAP template aimed at accounting for some 375,000
fixed assets in North America and Argentina, valued at about $15
billion. Fixed assets include items such as land, buildings and
equipment. The new tool provides a high degree of automation
to deliver greater visibility of GM assets and tracks them through
specification, purchase and use. Deployment of the tool reduced the
month-end closing processing time by 66 percent.
Additionally, the eSAP system, which accounts for about 85 percent
of GM’s general ledger transactions and supports over 160,000
users globally, received a major boost in performance with its re-
platforming to the new SAP HANA in-memory database technology.
Key user transactions and reports related to indirect purchase
orders, financial close activities, financial management of capital
and engineering projects, aftersales operations, marketing, accounts
payable and receivable are now running two to five times faster on
the new platform, which is critical to support month-end closing
and other time sensitive processes. The deployment earned the
fourth-quarter Excellence in IT Award for teams and has been well
received by business partners.
Dan Mahlebashian, executive director, GBS Purchasing Services was
delighted with the outcome. “What took minutes to run, in terms of

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GLOBAL CORPORATE FUNCTIONS

WILLIAM
HOUGHTON

CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER

Global Corporate Functions (GCF) IT delivers technology solutions
that impact every employee. From payroll systems to public policy,
and from Socrates and taxation systems to Global Business Services,
GCF IT drives corporate capabilities at GM.
“Our team supports a variety of projects and processes,” CIO Bill
Houghton said. “One day they can be working on a project for
Human Resources and the next day they might be delivering an app
for Legal. We try to do a lot of cross-training and maintain a core
group of expertise.”
The GCF IT team successfully implemented the first phase of GM
Recognition, the new online global social recognition program for
employees. The user-friendly system is designed to encourage all
employees to recognize and share great work. The second phase of
the program, where leaders can recognize employees with rewards,
will continue to be rolled out to regions through 2018. Over a period
of about three months, the GCF IT team enabled single sign-on and
established feeds to and from the site, including a link to payroll
systems that vary by country. Recognition is considered a key
element necessary to build a winning culture at GM.
Also, GCF IT and Legal Operations worked together as one integrated
team to successfully deploy a new legal management system.
More than 6.5 million documents were migrated, retaining all
metadata and permissions. The new legal document management
system, called iManage, organizes and categorizes documents

18

and integrates them into Outlook for easier access and sharing. GCF IT MIGRATED
A new interface to eSAP for the submission of payment requests
eliminated manual payments, impacting over 400 legal service MORE THAN
providers and numerous one-time payees.
“The new state-of-the-art system provides our Legal team with the 6.5M
same kind of document management tools used by large outside
legal firms,” Houghton said. DOCUMENTS TO LAUNCH NEW
In support of GM’s global payroll strategy, the GCF IT team STATE-OF-THE-ART LEGAL DOCUMENT
implemented GM’s common payroll system for 16,000 MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
employees in Brazil. In addition to meeting legal and government
requirements, the complex project involved migrating payroll GFC’s Gehan Kitromelides (left) and Samatha Aynampudi (right) are joined by
from six manufacturing facilities, each with a unique union and business partner Norm Shore at Diwali potluck
payroll progression. The new system, which replaces a 30-year-old
mainframe, allows employees to view pay slips online, improves
compliance with Brazil’s ever-changing legal requirements,
enhances reporting and analytics, and upgrades financial controls.
Employees around the world took note as GCF IT joined forces with
Global End User Experience (GEUE) and communications teams to
deliver Socrates to company cell phones. GCF IT delivered content
management to ensure Socrates had the same look and feel on all
devices. At the same time, the GEUE team added new functionality
to streamline the log-in process. Now, once a user completes the
initial login process from their enrolled mobile device, they no
longer have to enter their ID, password, or two-factor code for these
mobile applications, including Socrates.
“I frequently encourage our team to stay focused on what’s
important to deliver on their commitments. We are all sometimes
pulled in many directions – staying focused on the critical elements
is key to our success,” Houghton said.

GCF’s Mark Jackson and Paulo Fontes meet with the Brazil payroll team

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INFORMATION SECURITY AND
IT RISK MANAGEMENT

RICH ARMOUR

CHIEF INFORMATION SECURITY
OFFICER

In an era when cyber threats are happening with greater frequency,
the Information Security and IT Risk Management (ISRM)
organization plays an essential role in the day-to-day security of IT
operations for GM.
Chief Information Security Officer Rich Armour leads the ISRM
team and maintains that the battle for IT security is difficult
and ongoing. “The threat landscape is getting worse; it’s getting
more sophisticated; the volume is higher and you can just see the
breaches piling up: everything from Equifax, to the U.S. Securities
and Exchange Commission, to Yahoo miscounting the number of
people impacted by data breaches,” he said.
As this landscape continues to evolve, the need for security that
is truly world class becomes essential. To help combat this trend,
ISRM deployed the Path to World Class initiative: a multi-year
strategic plan designed to improve the coverage quality and scope
of security controls across GM. The scope of the initiative ranges
from fundamental security measures and awareness, to policy and
metrics, to detection and response – and it continues to evolve with
the threat landscape.
“The criteria for the Path to World Class not only incorporates the
core, traditional enterprise environment features, but supports the
industrial control environment as well as the virtual enterprise,”
Armour explained. The industrial control environment refers to
company assets such as manufacturing plants and warehousing,

20

and the virtual enterprise includes the GM supply chain, joint 5 WAYS TO KEEP GM
ventures and alliances, and dealerships. Collectively, the importance INFORMATION SAFE
of these elements reinforces the need to provide end-to-end levels
of security that our customers need and deserve. 1 DON’T USE YOUR GM CONTACT INFORMATION
“We’ve also published guidelines for our dealers and added security FOR PERSONAL ACCOUNTS
as part of their incentive program that leverages a good-better-best
model. By adhering to this model, dealers can earn varying levels of 2 DIRECT VISITORS WITHOUT ACCESS PASSES
incentives for achieving those levels of security,” Armour said. AND COLLEAGUES WITHOUT ID BADGES TO THE
The IT transformation, which involved insourcing 95 percent of VISITOR LOBBY
the IT employee base, helped pave the way for the successful
deployment of the Path to World Class initiative. “The IT 3 ALWAYS REPORT SUSPICIOUS EMAIL.
transformation continues to pay dividends for us because of the GO TO PROTECT.GM.COM/REPORTING
essential standardization, modernization and centralization the CONCERNS FOR INSTRUCTIONS
initiative provided. It was groundbreaking in terms of security
because it meant implementing smaller numbers of solutions to get 4 USE GM’S VPN TO CONNECT TO WI-FI AND
security controls in place than would be possible in an uncontrolled BROWSE THE WEB WHEN AWAY FROM
environment that existed from the decades of outsourcing,” THE OFFICE
Armour said.
To help keep the ISRM team focused on the vital importance of 5 NEVER LEAVE NON-PUBLIC GM INFORMATION
their work, Armour espouses a “post-breach” mindset at every ON DESKS OR IN COMMON AREAS
opportunity. “We maintain a ‘we’ve had a breach’ culture, in the 20
sense that you don’t wait until a major security incident has
occurred to get serious about security. Take that attitude now and
own it,” he said.
Employees also play a key role in achieving greater IT security
across GM. While there are many tools in place to help secure
the company, it still comes down to everyone, including the 200
members of the ISRM team, doing their part and taking personal
responsibility.
“We can’t do it without you,” Armour explained. “We know there
is some inconvenience associated with security controls, but we all
just have to learn to embrace it, because that means better security
for the enterprise – and that protects you, it protects our customers,
and it protects GM.”

CORPORATE DEVELOPMENT AND
GLOBAL MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS

JEFF LIEDEL

CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER

The Corporate Development and Global Mergers and Acquisitions IT
team provides support for a wide range of global business partners,
driving bottom-line savings, improved efficiencies and integration.
CIO Jeff Liedel leads the organization which supports dozens of
business partnerships around the world. “Our team has a broad
knowledge of every business process at GM,” Liedel said. “We are
required to understand the entire product chain — everything from
design, to manufacturing, to dealer ordering and delivery — and all
of the systems that support each process.”
In 2017, the team led the monumental task of preparing the Opel/
Vauxhall business for sale to the PSA Group. The project impacted
the entire IT organization, as employees across all CIO functions
focused on identifying and separating critical data to complete the
sale. IT’s execution was flawless.
“The entire IT team performed brilliantly to support the completion
of the sale,” Liedel said. “However, there’s still a lot of work to be
done as we continue to unravel systems and data, and drive toward
completion of the transition in the months to come.”
You can learn more about the PSA transition and some of the key IT
activities on pages 23-24.
In addition to the Opel/Vauxhall sale, the team supported
divestiture of GM Kenya, GM South Africa, India's Halol plant and
structural changes to GM Uzbekistan’s venture. Covering a scope
of work aimed at protecting GM while allowing the newly-formed
company to operate, IT teams transferred IT equipment, securely
segregated data, transitioned thousands of applications, moved

22

users, separated networks, built SAP instances, and supported the As a result of early engagement, IT delivered an SAP environment,
successful financial close through operating systems. This work an external facing website, email capabilities, and PeopleFinder
touches all IT teams and requires consistent, collaborative and functionality for the partnership in 2017.
ongoing teamwork to support business objectives. “Planning is essential for our team,” Liedel added. “As General
GM's joint venture (JV) partners have become increasingly critical to Dwight Eisenhower once said while commanding troops during
the company’s success. IT’s relationship with Shanghai GM (SGM), World War II, ‘Plans are nothing; planning is everything.’
our joint venture partner in China, deepened in 2017, as the number Planning provides options — and that’s important in an
of IT projects rose to 60, a three-fold increase from the year before. ever-changing landscape.”
The Corporate Development and Global Mergers and Acquisitions
IT team, in partnership with IT's horizontal organizations, focused GM SYSTEM AND NETWORK
on assessing systems and infrastructure to identify common IMPROVEMENTS REDUCED
ground between each environment and executing work aimed at JOINT VENTURE INCIDENTS BY
improving productivity, driving cost savings and enabling efficient
collaboration with SGM. 65%
The team successfully launched the GM portal which allows
SGM and other joint venture partners to have access to over 50 SINCE 2015
GM applications and almost 200 SharePoint sites to drive greater
collaboration. They also deployed a service desk feature allowing SGM team tours GM data center in Warren, Michigan
SGM to forward incident tickets to GM IT service desks, enabling
quick issue remediation. Additionally, the group successfully
increased SGM adoption of 14 applications spanning areas like
vehicle cybersecurity, paint shop performance management and
wireless controller software to further enhance collaboration and
cost savings between the two companies.
Liedel’s organization was involved with the industry’s first joint
venture to manufacture fuel cells from the get-go. GM and Honda
plan to produce hydrogen fuel-cell systems for vehicles starting
in 2020. The IT team had a seat at the table as requirements were
defined and solutions were proposed.
“Getting involved up front is key,” Liedel said. “We were there
when they were setting up the business architecture for the joint
venture with Honda, which allowed us to share our insight and offer
solutions that would result in greater efficiency and lower costs
based on our existing IT systems and architecture.”

22

A SMOOTH TRANSITION FOR

PSA

FLAWLESS IT SYSTEMS

When General Motors announced plans to sell the Opel/Vauxhall
business to PSA Group on March 3, the report triggered a chain
reaction of strategy and planning sessions throughout the
organization as teams determined how best to unwind
the subsidiary.
More than 2,000 IT team members from virtually every CIO area
were involved in the divestiture. Following extensive reviews and
planning, hundreds of applications, platforms, databases, portals
and SharePoint sites were transitioned to enable GM and PSA teams
to access information pertinent to their work while protecting GM’s
intellectual property. Thanks to the commitment of the IT team, the
transition was seamless when the sale closed on Aug. 1.
“All IT systems worked flawlessly, Day 1 readiness was fantastic,”
said Michael Lochscheller, CEO Opel Automobile GmbH.
Highlights include:
A critical set of OnStar applications, housed in a data center in
Russelsheim, Germany, was migrated to a new GM-owned data
center in Dublin, Ireland. The scope of work included procuring
and commissioning the new data center facility, procuring and
completing the network and computing infrastructure, and
testing the European OnStar applications end to end. The IT team,
including Global Telecom, Global Infrastructure, Global Database,
Architecture and Tools (GDAT) and Global End User Experience
(GEUE), worked nonstop with Global Connected Customer
Experience and Connected Ecosystem Integration teams to deliver
what typically takes more than eight months in less than four, in
addition to standing up a new data center.

24

In less than six weeks, the GDAT team successfully launched 36 applications to help with the transition of the Opel/Vauxhall
applications in the Russelsheim Data Center to support GM Europe automotive business to PSA. TeamCenter and over 200 SharePoint
divestiture activities, in advance of the transition. The GDAT tools sites were duplicated and data was separated, enabling GM and PSA
provide the foundation for all applications moving to PSA. teams to access data pertinent to their work. Importantly, restricted
Galileo Lite, a new lightweight, temporary clone of our GM on- math data was removed from the Opel TeamCenter application to
premise cloud Galileo, dramatically accelerated deployment and protect GM’s intellectual property.
support of GM services for the PSA divestiture with streamlined
functionality and service automation. Galileo Lite was implemented Manufacturing, Global Purchasing and Supply Chain, Customer
in just five weeks and was responsible for the successful Care and Aftersales, Quality and Workplace Safety IT assessed 666
deployment of nearly 400 applications. total applications used by Opel/Vauxhall in the GM space, built
The European Enterprise SAP system in the Enterprise Data Center or prepared clones and environments for 175 applications, and
was successfully cloned to support the operation of separate GM transitioned a total of 179 applications in 2017. In addition, hundreds
and PSA companies. The system is responsible for the financial of SharePoint sites were also migrated. As the plants ramped up
transactions within the European region. after Day 1, the GM and Opel/Vauxhall teams worked together
Strong cross-functional collaboration supported the Day 1 performing system health checks across the board ensuring that
transition. Gathered in four war rooms, teams from across IT, PSA plant and operational startups were completely successful.
and Opel/Vauxhall quickly identified and resolved any issues that While much work remains to fully complete the separation, GM IT is
arose on Aug. 1. The Global Ops team led the verification of more committed to a timely and well-planned total transition.
than 900 applications.

The GM IT Enterprise Application Integration team developed new
approaches to converting more than 800 interfaces and created
new platforms, databases, schemas and portals to support the
divestiture of the Opel/Vauxhall business. The scope of change
also extended to GM’s suppliers via SupplyPower and the need to
synchronize over 70,000 users.

Global Product Development IT’s Product Lifecycle Management
team separated non-GM application users from key engineering

24

GLOBAL OPERATIONS SERVICES

STACY LYNETT

CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER

Working around the clock is a way of life for the Global Operations
team led by CIO Stacy Lynett.
“We are passionate about keeping things running day in and day
out,” she said. “Every member of the team is committed to making
sure that a business customer never goes down.”
The main focus of Global Operations is to keep the technology
behind GM’s plants, parts warehouses, consumer-facing systems
and other corporate systems available and performing well – and
automation is a key to its success.
Automation helps reduce the amount of manual intervention
required to perform myriad of repeatable tasks necessary to
keep the IT ecosystem functioning at peak performance. In 2017,
automating the infrastructure patching process was a top priority.
Patches are layers of software updates which help ensure the
security and capability of GM network devices, storage, databases
and servers.
The Operations team set out to automate the patching process for
10 percent of the applications hosted at the enterprise data centers
(EDC) and 25 percent of the post-patching health checks for critical
applications. By year-end, the team doubled its goal for automating
EDC-based apps and tripled the automated health check objective.
“I am proud of our team’s success,” Lynett said. “By leveraging
the technical tools that we have to automate these processes we
provide better results for the business and minimize manual work
for the team.”

26

Keeping incident rates on a downward trend is an ongoing objective teams could better validate and prepare for the change. The
of the Global Operations organization. In recent years, GM has outcome was impressive. In 2017, IT deployed 20 percent more
moved from having about one major incident a day, lasting an changes than the year before at a success rate of 99.6 percent, while
average of more than five hours, to one major incident every two reducing the resulting incident rate by over 50 percent and the
weeks lasting less than half the time. major incident rate by 40 percent.
Incidents often result in business disruption, which inhibits the “While resolving incidents is always important, the Operations
overall productivity of GM. In addition to getting better at resolving team really focused on preventing incidents from happening by
incidents that occur, the organization strives to prevent incidents being proactive with change management in 2017,” Lynett said.
from happening. This mindset drove several key efforts in 2017.
One of them was called SolveIT. Championed by Lynett, the 99.996%
program taps global IT talent to solve major operational challenges
and provides valuable career and development opportunities APPLICATION
for individuals. IT employees volunteer outside of their normal AVAILABILITY
responsibilities to join SWAT teams to address chronic problems
that have historically driven high-incident rates. More than 350 Excellence in IT Award winner Art Main
employees signed up to participate in the program, delivering helps promote safety in the workplace
solutions for a host of issues impacting GM component plants,
vehicle sales reporting and OnStar, to name a few. Stacy Lynett, GM; Davide Ferina, FCA; Marcy Klevorn, Ford on panel for Michigan Council
“SolveIT has been a great example of the willingness of our IT of Women in Technology
team to spend their own time to solve problems and to learn new
skills and technologies. It demonstrates the team’s commitment to
success as an organization,” Lynett said with pride.
The Operations team also sought to minimize the impact of
change on the IT ecosystem as a way to reduce incidents. In 2017, IT
implemented over 70,000 individual changes into the production
environment. While that’s a natural result of the tremendous work
performed by innovation teams, from an operations perspective, it
presented 70,000 opportunities to disrupt the environment.
To mitigate this risk, the Global Operations team looked for ways to
reduce the incident rate resulting from deployed changes. The team
reorganized the Enterprise Release Management meeting to ensure
that the most important cross-functional changes were reviewed,
improved impact analysis and its availability, and communicated
change schedules well in advance of implementation. As a result,

26

GLOBAL END USER EXPERIENCE

FRED KILLEEN

CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER

Employee pride is key to success within the Global End User
Experience (GEUE) organization. Fred Killeen, who is at the helm as
chief technology officer, wants employees to be proud of their work
and own it.
“ ‘Would you put your name on it?’ is a question we frequently ask
ourselves. We hope all of our team members are really proud of
what they do and think they should be willing to put their name on
any project or solution they deliver,” Killeen said.
His organization draws inspiration from iconic brands in the
consumer space and provides tools and solutions to help GM
employees everywhere work more efficiently.
The new GM IT Store is one of the team’s most visible projects
completed in 2017. The initiative provides newfound ease for
employees looking for phones, software and other tools. Inspired
by shopping sites like Amazon and the Apple Store, the Global End
User Adoption and Global Data, Architecture and Tools teams set
out to provide a world-class experience for employees searching for
the tools they need. Services were streamlined and design elements
and efficiencies were added to improve the customer experience.
The result is a user-friendly site that processes more than 50,000
orders a month and collectively saves employees tens of thousands
of hours each year.
The GEUE team also is proud of a new collaboration hub for
employees. Microsoft Teams is a chat-based tool designed to help
maximize online collaboration capabilities. It brings together
content, people, conversations and Microsoft tools such as
OneDrive, SharePoint, Office and OneNote into one central location,
and enables secured access from a desktop or mobile device.

28

“Microsoft Teams takes a lot of the tools that are familiar and GEUE GEUE
integrates them into a simpler way to work,” Killeen said. SUPPORTS
The leading edge technology was tested in several early adopter PROCESSES OVER
deployments to business groups, including GM leaders attending 13K
the Senior Leaders Meeting last fall. Kerry Christopher, director, GM 35M
Communications was pleased with the tool. “We can't continue to SHAREPOINT SITES WITH EMAIL MESSAGES
spend half our day or more sending emails back and forth. It's not
productive and honestly no fun. Teams allows me to connect with 10M PER MONTH
lots of people, fast and everyone can chime in,” he said.
Cathy Clegg, vice president, GM Business Intelligence Group, added, PAGE VIEWS PER MONTH (SENT AND RECEIVED)
“Thanks for introducing the tool — it's an enabler for fast, effective
engagement.” Almost $20,000 was raised for United Way during Michigan Geek Week
Badge Print is another GEUE product developed with the customer GEUE team celebrates opening of the PC Garage, an employee drive-thru for computer
in mind. The easy-to-use, secure and convenient tool eliminates the pick up and drop off in Warren, Michigan
need to map to a printer and allows employees to use any printer at
any location – a big plus for employees on the go. Documents stay
in queue for 24 hours, allowing employees to collect them with a
tap of their badge. Employees access the tool through a simple
one-time setup.
The GEUE team’s passion for the supporting employees led to
an improved enterprise-wide search tool and several timesaving
applications in 2017. As the name suggests, the app known as
RoomFinder helps employees locate and schedule a room from a
computer or phone using a map feature. The PC Dashboard has a
suite of helpful information, tools and utilities to help ensure that
an employee’s computer is running optimally. App Dashboard
allows employees to check the status of a favorite application online
and receive status updates and view scheduled maintenance.
Also, GEUE’s Emerging Technology team supports development
within IT through its annual Geek Week, where the team rolls out
three days of activities at each innovation center to inspire, educate
and drive innovative thinking across the organization. IT employees
learn from representatives of leading technology companies,
participate in contests and challenges to promote discovery, and
join a daylong hackathon designed to solve real-world concerns.

28

GLOBAL TELECOMMUNICATIONS

TONY BOLTON

CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER

The Global Telecommunications team provides a critical function for
GM that bridges data, voice, mobile, video, virtual reality and digital
signage to enhance communications and collaboration within the
company and among end users.
Global Telecom CIO Tony Bolton, who is leading the charge for the
team, compares them to an elite fighting force. “We’re like the
marines, we’re often the first ones in and last out,” Bolton said.
“We take pride in our ability to simplify complex problems and
collaborate with IT and business teams across the organization.”
The team rolled out the next generation of integrated audio, video
and web collaboration for GM in 2017. Branded GM Meetings, the
tool uses Skype for Business and Cisco as the core platform to
integrate video, audio, chat and email services, and blend into one
seamless collaborative experience.
GM Meetings, which replaced WebEx Meetings, enhanced the
user experience by simplifying the scheduling of meetings,
improving the quality and security of calls and further enabling
remote participation. The solution also reduced costs by removing
dependency on external suppliers. The deployment is the result
of close collaboration within IT. The Telecoms team designed
and implemented the required infrastructure and technology
integration while the Global End User Experience team supported
training and communication to employees.
Though Bolton is based in Dublin, Ireland, his team extends around
the world. “The fact that we are truly a global team – and not
defined by the four walls we sit in – helps us develop the very
solutions that we need, to stay connected, relevant and apply them
to employees everywhere,” he said.

30

The Telecom team electrified the organization with its audiovisual technologies and the broader enterprise IT domain. A pilot is
expertise. In addition to deploying thousands of digital signs to underway at GM Pre-production Operations in Warren, Michigan.
dealers, the team designed and implemented the audiovisual “We don’t wait for someone to come to us with a problem, we are
solution for the renovation of the GM World display area at always questioning the status quo, making improvements and
company headquarters in Detroit, Michigan. The team delivered looking for ways to continually innovate,” Bolton added.
over 5,000 square feet of large format physical displays, 150,000
watts of audio, and several other technologies to help share GM’s Chairman and CEO Mary Barra opens GM NEW
vision in a dynamic social area that tenants and visitors will enjoy World with IT audiovisual solutions
for years to come. GM WORLD
Additionally, the team is working with Manufacturing IT and
Manufacturing Engineering teams to develop secure industrial 5,000+
networks for the future. While manufacturing systems were
traditionally deployed as isolated environments, there are SQUARE FEET OF
increasing demands for the networks to communicate with DISPLAYS
enterprise IT systems and with external vendor platforms by way
of the internet. Although the benefits are compelling, the increased 40,000+
connectivity presents a range of challenges, particularly
around security. POUNDS OF
Working with its partners, Telecom developed an industrial internet EQUIPMENT
of things architecture to support greater connectivity and provide
real-time visibility to enable cybersecurity teams to quickly
identify, analyze and resolve any behavior or communications
that may present security, safety or production risks. The industry-
leading architecture is designed to support deployments in GM’s
largest industrial environments and integrate with emerging

GM IT team in Dublin, Ireland 150,000+

WATTS OF AUDIO

30

GLOBAL INFRASTRUCTURE

GERRY JACOB

CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER

Virtually every GM employee is a consumer of information
technology – from laptops and desktops, to the intranet and
applications, to the enterprise data centers that keep the company’s
IT operations running and secure.
“Our role is to provide the backbone for those capabilities,” CIO
Gerry Jacob said about the Global Infrastructure (GI) team he leads.
“Just like the chassis of a car, we provide the IT framework that
makes it possible to drive GM forward.”
In addition to playing pivotal roles in the success of Galileo, GM’s
private cloud, and the divestiture of Opel/Vauxhall to PSA, GI
delivered a diverse range of achievements in 2017.
High-performance computing (HPC) is one of the areas that GI
supported in 2017. HPC is the process of increasing computing
power by combining clusters of computers to process massive
amounts of data much faster than a single computer. GM engineers
rely on this revved up form of computing to help create vehicle
designs that mitigate expensive physical vehicle prototypes,
improve fuel efficiency and enhance safety.
Last year, GI and HPC Operations completed the migration to active
directory, which is a system for managing user access to network
resources. The effort involved processing over 350 million files
and migrating more than 7,500 servers and 1,800 users, resulting
in improved productivity, reduced complexity and cost, and
compliance with GM security standards.
The GI team also supported the migration to a new data
management platform that helped save thousands of hours of

32

work while improving support for data analytics. The new solution, GI MIDDLEWARE REALIZES
known as Hortonworks, required migrating from the existing service PRODUCTIVITY SAVINGS OF
– a process that was expected to take thousands of hours of labor to
complete. By collaborating with Global Data, Architecture and Tools 14,408HOURS
and Global Data, Artificial Intelligence and Analytics Services, the GI
team devised a plan to accelerate the migration, completing it GI’s Tom Painter engages with Paul Birecki during GI employee meeting
in October.
“The benefits of the migration to Hortonworks were substantial,” GI REDUCES CODE INEFFICIENCIES FROM
Jacob said. “We’re now able to provision industry-leading data
technologies in support of GM's data management, analytics and 65,000
data science practices, in addition to improving support, stability
and industry-leading security capabilities. These and many other LINES OF CODE TO
benefits have truly moved the needle for us.”
Middleware as a Service (MWaaS) is another area in which GI made 19,000
significant improvements for developers. Middleware refers to
software that connects network-based requests from developers to TO BETTER MANAGE DATA
access the back-end data they need. Essentially, it’s a general term
for software that serves to glue together separate, often complex
and existing programs.
In the case of GM, much of this work was previously done on a
manual basis, requiring developers to contact GI directly to request
services such as additional storage or computing. Today – thanks to
MWaaS – all the administrative effort involved with such requests
is now automated via the Galileo cloud, freeing up developers to be
even more productive.
“The main benefit is that it facilitates faster deployment
of applications and frees developers from dealing with the
complexities of the underlying hardware and software
components,” Jacob said. “Over the course of the past year, the
team was successful in providing automation and improving the
landscape of services for our IT development teams, leading to
thousands of hours and millions of dollars in productivity gains.”

32

GLOBAL DATABASE,
ARCHITECTURE AND TOOLS

DON ROHRER

CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER

The vast majority of what the Global Database, Architecture and
Tools (GDAT) team does is help all other IT teams be successful.
“I view GDAT as the rails that IT rides on – that’s not to take
anything away from the other IT organizations; they’re all key, but
GDAT is a little different in that 90 percent of what we do is provide
others with the capabilities they need to achieve great things,” CIO
Don Rohrer said.
With seamless integration of data technologies, tools, development
and architecture, the GDAT team provides innovative and
automated technology solutions.
The Mobility Application Framework (MAF), deployed in the first
quarter of 2017, is a good example of the capabilities the GDAT team
provides. Designed to dramatically simplify mobile application
development, the MAF enables developers to download a skeleton
mobile app with all the basic functionality, including GM IT
standards, look-and-feel, as well as sample code.
“MAF provides rapid buildout of the basics, which, in turn,
allows developers to focus on creating innovative features and
functionality for their mobile apps,” said Rohrer. “The Maxis mobile
app illustrates the benefits of this framework in action in that it was
up and running within a few weeks versus months.”
GDAT also responded to the business’s ongoing need for robust
development. The Software Development Tools and Engineering
team onboarded over 1,000 engineering and autonomous
developers to GM IT modern development tools for integrated

34

design, development, testing and deployment. Available via the maturation of new data management technologies, speeding their
Galileo private cloud portal, the tools are instantly accessible time-to-production from months to weeks.
through an intuitive interface with automated configuration and “At the end of the day, our focus is all about being advocates for
onboarding, reducing lead time by 99 percent. innovation and enablers for efficient operations. Our approach to
“Aligning software engineering processes and tools across GM IT every conversation is to ask ‘how can I help?’ We’re not in it for the
and Engineering provides significant synergies, best practices and credit – we’re in it to make everyone and GM successful,”
knowledge-sharing that benefit all development teams within GM,” Rohrer said.
Rohrer said.
An overarching objective of the GDAT Tools team is to eliminate GM EVP Alicia Boler Davis, GDAT’s Terri GDAT’s Guhan Jayagopal receives
inefficiencies through standardization and automation and pave the Lee and her sister, Doris Block, at the Black Value-Add award from Carnegie Mellon
way for GM IT resources to deliver more innovation to GM. To help Engineer of the Year Awards in Wash., D.C.
in that effort, the team focused on patch management, swinging
the pendulum from manual effort to full-scale automation. The Global Operations Renee Polak recognizes GDAT’s IT Operational Reporting team via
team collaborated with Global Infrastructure to streamline the video collaboration for development of a monthly dashboard
processes and deploy a new tool, Big Fix, to efficiently patch servers,
reducing exposure to system vulnerabilities. What used to take
10 administrators several weeks working 24/7 can be done by one
person in one day.
“On the surface, patch automation helps GDAT do our jobs better
and faster, but we’re really doing this on behalf of our IT partners
that face similar challenges,” Rohrer said. “We’re doing this to
streamline work for Global Operations, Global Infrastructure and
any other IT organization. It’s really all about trying to free up
resources to do other things.”
Also in 2017, the GDAT Hyper Scale Data Management team
introduced next-generation core data management services to
develop real-time, big data applications for continuous availability.
Open source software – software in which the source code is openly
available for others to change as needed – is at the heart of critical,
emerging connected vehicle capabilities. Self-support has saved
several million dollars in this space alone.
To pilot these and other cutting-edge technologies, teams can
leverage the GDAT Data Technologies Incubation Lab that supports
cross-functional acceleration and fosters the innovation and

34

THE SKY IS THE LIMIT FOR

GALILEO

GM PRIVATE CLOUD

As we enter the third year of our private cloud journey, productivity
gains are exponentially growing.
“This is a journey as we evolve Galileo to create the right conditions
that are conducive to enabling our developers to be more
productive,’’ CIO Gerry Jacob said of the initiative he leads.
Supported by staff representing Global Infrastructure, Global
Database, Architecture and Tools, and Global Telecommunications,
the in-house productivity powerhouse made major inroads toward
modernizing and expediting GM’s IT application development
environment on multiple fronts in 2017.
Teams made considerable progress as they deployed cloud service
offerings to both production and non-production environments.
A production environment is a network of computers – actual
or virtual – where applications are deployed by developers for
end users. A non-production environment is basically a practice
environment for developers to work with applications before they
go “live” to remove any bugs or potential design flaws.
GM IT partnered with Pivotal Cloud Foundry (PCF) to deploy
Platform as a Service to Galileo. It enables developers to use
virtualized servers and other services to run existing applications, or
design, develop, test, deploy and host applications. This is a cost-
effective approach to application development that eliminates the
need to purchase and install hardware and software – because it’s
all in the cloud. It also translates into greater agility, faster time-to-
market, and reduced costs and security risks.
Since the introduction of PCF, nearly 100 applications have been
onboarded and approximately 300,000 productivity hour gains
were realized across multiple organizations.

36

Before launching globally, PCF was deployed to Maven’s mobility Galileo team gets training to better support GM’s private cloud
platform, where the team realized an end-to-end developer
experience that was hundreds of times faster than before. “The
results were world class – providing a simple, seamless and
powerful developer and operator experience,” Jacob said. “Using PCF
ultimately demonstrates how GM IT leverages today’s digital-world
opportunities and converts them into innovation and productivity.”
Justin Klein, lead developer, Urban Active Development agrees.
“PCF has allowed for continuous integration development of new
features and enhancements, while providing fast turnaround
by deploying new technology stacks that used to take days to
complete,” Klein said.
With these new capabilities come new tools, skills and different
processes to cultivate quick assimilation. The Galileo Adoption
Center was launched in 2017 to help identify and onboard early
adopters to Galileo’s PCF Platform as a Service and provide guidance
to teams to refactor and rethink application development. The
Galileo Champions’ Center provides learning and education for
users through a wealth of documentation and training, and
ultimately helps the Galileo team to continuously enhance GM’s
private cloud offerings.
These are just a few of many examples of how Galileo is helping
developers to deliver productivity to both GM IT and GM. “2017 has
become known as the year of allowing developers to be developers
in GM IT,” Jacob said. “Gone are the days when it would take
weeks or even months to deploy infrastructure. Today, those same
deployments are done in hours – or in some cases minutes.”
The Global Infrastructure, Global Database, Architecture and
Tools, and Global Telecommunications teams look forward to
continuing the partnership with Innovation teams to expand
Galileo’s capabilities in 2018 through PCF, Chef configuration
management and many other automation tools. “Adopting the
capabilities of Galileo is critical for IT success because we need the
automation, improved processes, and productivity gains to deliver
the committed 2018 portfolio,” Jacob said.

36

IT GLOBAL DATA, AI AND
ANALYTICS SERVICES

LES COPELAND

CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER

The sky is the limit to what GM can do with the abundance of data
throughout the company. According to CIO Les Copeland, “There’s a
wealth of opportunity in the vast amounts of data across GM.”
The IT Global Data, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Analytics Services
(GDAAS) organization, led by Copeland, provides the business
intelligence and data analytic capabilities that are transforming
how GM manages data to produce valuable insights for
the enterprise.
2017 marked a new chapter for GM as Copeland’s team embarked on
a digital transformation strategy centered on building a data-driven
culture. Complementing this strategy is a vision to empower current
and future data users with the knowledge and skills to enable a
culture of data-driven decision making.
Copeland explained that achieving this vision required all of IT
to rally around a common strategy for data. “We developed four
pillars for success that are simple but powerful. First, get all the
data; second, make the data usable; third, make the data accessible,
and fourth, deliver outstanding analytics products and insights to
our business customers. Everything we do aligns with one of these
pillars,” he said.
For the first time in GM’s history, the team has successfully
centralized all company and most third-party contractual data
through its Hyper-ingestion team into the Galileo Data and
Analytics Platform (GDAP). Getting all of GM’s data into one location
has delivered a tremendous amount of efficiency to the enterprise
by democratizing all data and removing the barriers limiting
cross-functional access to data sources. This innovative approach
to designing and automating multiple consumption patterns and

38

technologies enables inputting the data in real time, which keeps it an efficient way to gather vehicle build data content by VIN and
fresh and up-to-date throughout the business. In 2017, 1.3 petabytes the existing third-party solutions were lacking functionality. As a
of data were loaded into the platform – which is roughly the result, there was no means to establish residual value at a product
equivalent of storing over 13 years of high definition video. part level, no point-of-sale update capability and no customer-to-
With all data centralized, the GDAAS Data Engineering team set customer support for the 8.9 million vehicles sold annually.
forth a plan to make it usable. The team created 360-degree views, To address the issue, the Chevy Residual Management team
known as Enterprise Data Assets (EDAs), to help simplify GM’s big partnered with GDAAS to create iVIN using the vehicle 360-degree
data landscape. These EDAs are built from highly curated data EDAs available via Maxis. With iVIN, it’s now possible to unlock
sets to help address commonly asked business questions quickly, vehicle residuals for enhanced marketability and provide a more
accelerate analysis and enable ad-hoc reporting for continually efficient and cost effective trade-in process at the dealership.
evolving business needs. “As we close out the year, I am very proud of what we have been
An example of how the business has taken advantage of these able to accomplish,” Copeland said. “We’ve delivered more than 300
assets can be found with Global Product Purchasing, when it faced analytics and artificial intelligence programs in 2017, and today with
a budget challenge and looked to data for answers. Because the GM’s big data and analytics platform, end users can do everything
data was now available and transparent in a usable fashion through from saving millions of dollars on warranty claims, to predicting
Warranty Data Cube, the purchasing organization was able to find when engines may fail in a vehicle. We can now also support cabin
a discrepant claim with a supplier for $27 million within hours. "This monitoring using AI and machine learning – which means the
partnership is providing valuable and very timely insights that are system can learn independent of human interaction, as well as
improving business results and customer satisfaction," said Kim mapping technologies for Super Cruise.”
Brycz, executive director of Global Product Purchasing. With a heightened focus on data analytics in 2018, Copeland’s
To help make data usable by everyone, Copeland’s team launched organization will continue to drive data and analytics into the
Maxis, GM’s single source for data and insights. Hosted on Galileo, DNA of GM.
GM’s private cloud, Maxis is shaping the future of business
intelligence for the enterprise. It provides simplified access to data OVER MAXIS
assets, integrated tools to meet the varying demands of customers’
data exploration and the necessary resources to help them along 75K DELIVERS
the way.
With features like learning labs for skills development and a social GM EMPLOYEES 2.4T
platform that enables everyone from our newest intern to the most CAN INTERACT
seasoned data scientist to collaborate, Maxis is revolutionizing WITH THE DATA ROWS OF DATA
the way GM interacts with data. As Executive Director of Global
Operations Quality, Camilo Ballesty stated, "This platform is VIA MAXIS
changing how we create customers for life."
Another example of how Maxis is benefiting the business is through
the Intelligent VIN (iVIN) initiative. Until recently, GM did not have

38

OFFICE OF THE CIO

SUZANNE
BRANN

CHIEF ADMINISTRATION OFFICER

The Office of the CIO (OCIO), led by Chief Administration Officer
Sue Brann, is a multi-faceted organization with a diverse range of
responsibilities.
“When I have the opportunity to describe the OCIO to someone
unfamiliar with the team, they’re frequently surprised at both
the scope of our responsibilities and the pervasive impact the
organization has across IT,” Brann said.
The OCIO is comprised of three primary organizations: IT Portfolio
Governance, IT Software and Asset Management, and Training and
Business Development, with each having made multiple significant
contributions to IT throughout 2017.
The IT Portfolio Governance organization collaborates with planners
in CIO functions to prioritize the needs of business units and
establish the IT project portfolio with GM leadership. In 2017, the
team successfully reinvented the portfolio planning process – an
effort that required considerable self-examination and a focus on
being all-inclusive with every area of GM’s business. “It was truly
a first-time experience for us,” Brann said. “We sat down with
the organizations that handle the portfolio planning process for
vehicles, and learned how they establish a portfolio that spans over
ten years. We got some great ideas as a result of this
knowledge sharing.”
IT Software and Asset Management also had a productive year, with
a large degree of focus on the Opel/Vauxhall divestiture to PSA.
After spending the last five years centralizing and consolidating

40

software across the company, with enterprise software license acceptance of the prestigious lifetime achievement award for CIOs
agreements to cover all of GM for use over long periods of time, the from the Haas School of Business at the University of
prospect of breaking off a large portion of the company impacted California, Berkeley.
by the agreements presented a daunting task. “I think over the last year we had some really great success across
“It meant we had to determine how to do that separation and the board in terms of external communications with some very
provide PSA with the licenses they needed to run that business as a favorable press coverage,” Brann stated. “But Randy’s receipt of
standalone – which was a playbook that hadn’t been written until the lifetime achievement award was really a proud moment that
now,” explained Brann. “The teams did a phenomenal job.” reflected a lot of work to prepare for and paid great dividends
While the majority of the work is complete, it remains an ongoing in terms of Randy getting recognized by other well-known
process for the immediate future. industry icons and, in turn, hearing Randy sincerely appreciate
The Training and Business Development organization covers a wide the thousands of talented IT professionals he has had the pleasure
swath of responsibilities within the OCIO and made significant to work with over the course of his career. There is no one more
contributions to IT in 2017 as well. Within Training, the team deserving than Randy.”
delivered over 270 instructor-led classes to experienced and newly
hired employees, and comprehensive training for nearly 500 GM Chairman and CEO Mary Barra tours Dealer Lab, part of the expansion at the
new college hires over the course of the year despite budgetary Georgia IT Innovation Center
constraints. “While our headcount has increased every year, the
corresponding budget for training has not,” Brann said. “In spite Employees participate in town hall at new auditorium at Austin IT Innovation Center
of this contrast, I’m very proud of the fact that we’ve been able to
handle all of the training needs for IT.”
The Business Development component of the team involves an
array of areas that collectively contribute to the benefit of the OCIO
and the greater IT organization. Within Business Development,
Real Estate has been an area of major focus over the past year to
accommodate the rapid growth of Global IT. Achievements over
the past year include the grand opening of the new Austin North IT
Innovation Center that seats approximately 3,000 employees and
is equipped with a stunning auditorium for hosting large events.
Expansion to the Georgia Innovation Center was also completed
last year.
Business Development also includes internal and external
communications support for Global CIO Randy Mott and his staff,
and 2017 proved to be another banner year for getting the word out
across IT and points beyond about strategies, initiatives, challenges
and achievements. One of the most notable highlights was Mott’s

40

AUSTIN

IT INNOVATION CENTER

Camaraderie prevails at Geek Week Jordan Torres and Joaquin Casaban at
Interactive Cadillac Racing exhibit

TEXAS

2644

NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES

41

Dan Doran and Rabita Raya collaborate Joe Antholzner inspired by cube full of Sue Brann and Randy Mott engage with Diagonal Slice participants
Hot Wheels

Roz Tuggle answers employee questions Takis Petropoulos ready to roll in Cadillac
race car

GM Senior VP Global Human Resources Jose Tomas at IT town hall in new Austin Marc Wiz, Alfredo Mellado, Dale Harmacek, Jun Chen, David Zou, and Jack Martins
auditorium volunteer at Mobility Worldwide in Austin

42

GEORGIA

IT INNOVATION CENTER

Pushpa Kamisetty and Teo Topalov use new crosswalk built for employees to travel
safely outside innovation center

GEORGIA

1296

NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES

43

Lawmakers in Georgia praised GM and GM IT for supporting Green Veterans organiza- Mike Anderson, Shane McCutchen, Daniel Harris, Azzam Zahir, and Naveen Sankar
tion with used computers and parts (sitting) collaborate at the annual Geek Week event

Tim Steele, Segun Adeyina, and Ravi Kasu assemble shelter repair kits for Habitat for Soumya Ragunathan greets GM Chairman and CEO Mary Barra while Michael Anderson
Humanity to support Puerto Rico residents looks on

44

MICHIGAN

IT INNOVATION CENTER

Employee Giving Campaign Executive Champion Gerald Johnson kicks off 2017-18 drive

2427

NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES

45

Employees and leaders at the annual Geek Week Hackathon in Warren Carol Kalinski, Sarah Weslosky, and Daren Lucas at breast cancer walk in Detroit

CTO Fred Killeen addresses the CIO Executive Summit in Detroit Global Operations Services team gathers in commitment to and support of GM Safety Week
46

ARIZONA

IT INNOVATION CENTER

Shop Click Drive team jumps for joy over success of their consumer website

ARIZONA

895

NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES

47

Team members engage at the New Hire Open House event Nancy Bailey, Shane DeBrock, Alexandra Figueroa, and Lindsay Tustison enjoy Ostrich
Festival Parade

CIO Randy Mott presents Sriram Bommaraju with Excellence in IT Award Kimball Lyman signs the commitment banner for Global Safety Week

48

GM

EMPLOYEE RIDES

Keana Mowery relaxes in 2018 Chevy
Equinox in Detroit, Mich.

Paul Westerman has a delightful dilemma. Does he drive his 2017 Corvette or 2014 Camaro GPD IT’s Jason DiNatale drives his 1969 Chevy Camaro dream car in Michigan
to the Austin Innovation Center today?

Tony Di Bari drives his boyhood dream ride, a 2003 50th Anniversary Corvette in Michigan Eric and Sophie Traulsen of Arizona show Cave Wetterau prepares to take his 2017
49 off Sophie’s 2016 Buick LaCrosse Corvette for a parade lap in Austin, Texas