VolvoAB's IT division has begun an IT
standardisation programme that will consolidate the auto
manufacturer's 14 worldwide datacentres into three in the next two
years, saving an estimated £38.5m.
The
datacentre consolidation will reduce the number of physical
servers needed to support the firm's 200,000 users by using
virtualisation technology. By reallocating unused server capacity,
the IT division will be able to offer more processing power with
less hardware.
The standardisation project will allow Volvo AB to offer new
services, such as tracking customer trucks using telemetry. "By
improving the use of IT through standardisation, we will gain
global control over our systems, and this will help us in deploying
new services faster," said Ronny Westher, senior management adviser
at Volvo IT AB.
The firm, which has already deployed a single system to replace
the 25 systems previously used by dealers to place orders for
trucks, plans to standardise all internal business applications by
2011.
"We used to have 25 scattered dealer systems that interacted
with manufacturing systems. By standardising these applications and
processes, we eliminate problems where a dealer places an order
specification that the manufacturing division cannot build in
time," said Westher.
He said improving the internal IT operations of the Volvo group
could save approximately 10% of its £18bn manufacturing costs
through faster production and fulfilment times and time to
market.
Westher added that the biggest challenge in standardisation was
the politics of moving different IT groups around the world on to a
standard infrastructure. He said gaining regional buy-in when
standardising systems was vital.