IBM is pulling its broad resources together to develop unique solutions to vexing problems in the transportation, financial services, manufacturing, and other industries. IBM Global Services has long used practice areas to reach customers, but over the last year the Global Services group has doubled its number of business consultants to 60,000 experts and formed close links with the 3,000 researchers at IBM laboratories. "We're building a matrix that connects research, consulting, technology, and sales," says IBM technology assets vice president Dave McQueeney, who heads efforts bringing research resources to bear on client companies' problems. York International tapped IBM when it came to a complex integration project that linked remote diagnostics devices on all its air conditioning and industrial heating equipment to its services department. York IT director John Wood says industry-specific solutions from IBM will allow York to make the connection, which he describes as a necessary response to increased customer demands. Whereas previously customers could wait a day for a service call, now they need near immediate response, he says. BostonCoach President Russ Cooke says IBM researchers developed a mathematical formula that helps his company's dispatchers assign drivers more efficiently, even taking into account weather and traffic conditions. The system allowed BostonCoach to expand services into a new city without adding dispatchers. Canadian Pacific Railway vice president Allen Borak says access to IBM's transportation industry research was a key factor in his firm's recent decision to outsource its IT infrastructure to IBM. IBM researchers at the Centre for Transportation Innovation in Boulder, Colo., will study how RFID technology will affect Canadian Pacific's operations, for example. Copyright 2003 INFORMATION, INC. |
