GM gives $3M to Stanford School of Engineering

Carolyn Liu
University Wire
01-25-2001
(The Stanford Daily) (U-WIRE) STANFORD, Calif. -- General Motors announced Monday that it will provide the Stanford University School of Engineering with $3 million over three years for a new work-systems lab.

The lab, which will incorporate about 20 faculty, will utilize cutting-edge information technology to develop new products and services as well as to improve customer relations and business strategies.

"People go to work every day and use their know-how, information and tools to produce products and services," said Larry Burns, vice president of GM Research & Development and Planning. He added that Internet technology and other math-based tools offer "tremendous opportunities" for researchers to create quality services and goods at greater speed and efficiency.

"As the focus of our work shifts from atoms to bits, we're going from manipulating physical things like steel and aluminum to working with sophisticated virtual models," Burns continued. "Stanford is at the heart of much of this new technology."

Management Science and Engineering Prof. Arthur Veinott, who will be co-directing the new lab, shared Burns's enthusiasm for the work systems innovations the funding will enable.

"Our students and faculty are excited about the opportunity to work with GM engineers and scientists to create ideas and technologies that may help to shape the development of work systems in the 21st century," he said.

Gary McDonald, director of the Enterprise Systems Lab at GM's Research & Development Center in Michigan, will be directing the lab with Veinott. McDonald said that GM has "targeted improved work systems as one of our key strategic technologies" and emphasized the importance of joint work between GM and Stanford.

"We can leverage our experience and the resources we have [at GM] by collaborating with Stanford in this area," he said. "We expect that the research of their students and faculty will help us to develop ways to improve GM's future work systems."

Burns agreed. "Innovation networks such as this partnerships will function as incubators for new ideas," he said. "The fastest way to deliver innovation to market is to work together."

Management Science and Engineering chair Elisabeth Pat-Cornell said that the department was "honored to host the new lab," that would further its mission to develop knowledge and technologies for strategic planning, organizational design and operations management.

GM has funded similar labs in other areas at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and Jiaotong University in Shanghai, China.



(C) 2001 The Stanford Daily via U-WIRE