Toyota Motorsport Aligns Its IT Systems with Race Track Targets
Single view of Toyota's IT infrastructure reduces car manufacture time from years to days, cuts system downtime, and saves millions through identification of unused IT resources
HOUSTON, Oct. 25 -- BMC Software, Inc. , a leading provider of enterprise management solutions, today announced that Toyota Motorsport GmbH has fully aligned IT with its business objectives by adopting the BMC Software(R) Business Service Management (BSM) strategy, and is on track to achieve long-term success in Formula 1 (F1) from conception to the race track.
To achieve these improvements, Toyota Motorsport made the decision to introduce an IT management strategy to provide an overview of the many separate business systems on which its demanding, day-to-day operation depends. The company's vision for BSM is focused around the implementation of the BMC(R) Atrium Configuration Management Database (CMDB) and the solutions that leverage the BMC Atrium CMDB.
Every second that Toyota can improve its track performance counts, which was why it chose to adopt BSM, a dynamic method for linking key IT components to the goals of the business. BSM enables Toyota to fine tune its F1 manufacturing and reduce the time it takes from concept to track. It enables Toyota to understand and predict how technology impacts the business and how business impacts the IT infrastructure. BSM improves business performance and reduces cost and complexity of the IT infrastructure.
Toyota Motorsport is one of only two F1 teams that undertake the entire end-to-end design and manufacturing process in-house. It must have all the processes in place to build or modify a complete car within a short timeframe. Compared to the seven years it often takes manufacturers to bring a new car to market, at Toyota the same process is done virtually, from engine design and development to wind tunnel chassis research, construction and testing, and completed in a week during the race season.
Tom Bishop, chief technology officer at BMC Software, commented, "The BMC Atrium CMDB is an intelligent data repository that provides a working model of an enterprise's IT infrastructure -- a single source of truth. Implementing our BSM strategy, supported by the CMDB, allows Toyota to gain the IT control needed to support its business goals. By providing an accurate and consistent way for managing IT processes, the BMC Atrium CMDB enables Toyota to make better informed decisions and respond instantly to fast changing operational issues."
Thomas Schiller, general manager of IT systems at Toyota Motorsport, notes, "In the past, IT was concerned with servers. By allowing us to concentrate on services instead of servers, the BMC Atrium CMDB and integrated BMC Software BSM strategy places our focus firmly on the business."
Schiller provides a compelling example, "The BMC Software BSM strategy allows us to monitor the satellite link between Cologne and any racetrack at which we are competing. This link is essential to the entire team through each race weekend. It allows us to replicate the six to eight gigabytes of real time data, gathered by about 100 sensors on each F1 car, from the racetrack to our engineers in Cologne for immediate analysis. Without this live insight into the car's performance, we could not respond to changing conditions as the race progresses. By helping us guarantee the availability of these communications, the BSM strategy is making a key contribution to our race successes."
Key benefits:
-- Time cut from the usual seven years it often takes to manufacture a
car to one week
-- Reduced PC, notebook and workstation inventories by up to 20 percent
-- Fifteen percent savings on server costs by identifying unnecessary
resources
-- No SAP environment downtime at all since implementing BSM, compared to
eight hours' downtime the previous year.
Schiller concluded, "Working with BMC Software, we have set up a process-driven and highly automated monitoring system, that has enabled us to achieve the efficiency with moderate resources and ultimately become more competitive. Toyota Motorsport will use BMC Software to have our IT resources in the right place at the right time to win the F1 World Championship."
About Toyota Motorsport GmbH
Toyota Motorsport GmbH is a subsidiary of Toyota Motor Corporation of Japan and is in charge of Panasonic Toyota Racing, the official name for Toyota's Formula 1 team. With over 600 staff from 32 different nations, Toyota Motorsport has built the entire Toyota Formula 1 car, the TF104, under one roof at its 30,000 square meter factory in Cologne, Germany. The 2004 F1 Championship is Toyota's third season in F1 -- the pinnacle of motorsport -- after previous motorsport successes at the World Rally Championship and the 24 hours of Le Mans. http://www.toyota-f1.com/.
About Business Service Management
Business Service Management (BSM) is BMC Software's approach for enabling companies to manage their IT infrastructure and services from a business perspective. BSM enables companies to understand and predict the impact of technology changes on the business and conversely, how changes in business impact on IT, resulting in improved customer service and business performance. For additional information on BSM, visit http://www.bmc.com/bsm.
About BMC Software
BMC Software, Inc. , is a leading provider of enterprise management solutions that empower companies to manage their IT infrastructure from a business perspective. Delivering Business Service Management, BMC Software solutions span enterprise systems, applications, databases and service management. Founded in 1980, BMC Software has offices worldwide and fiscal 2005 revenues of more than $1.46 billion. For more information about BMC Software, visit http://www.bmc.com/.
BMC Software, the BMC Software logos, and all other BMC Software product or service names are registered trademarks or trademarks of BMC Software, Inc. All other trademarks or registered trademarks belong to their respective companies. All rights reserved.
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