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(CIM Software used by General Motor)

1/29/2016

 Introduction:

General Motors is one of the world’s largest car and truck companies. In Detroit,

General Motors was founded by William C. Durant in 1908. General Motors has many

automotive brands today such as Cadillac, Chevrolet, and GMC. In 2008, 8.3 million

General Motors cars and truck were sold under different brands. General Motors has

more than 212,000 employees works around the world in six continents. General Motors

engages in the business of designing, manufacturing, and sale of cars, trucks and auto

parts around the world. General Motors operates through four stations, GM North

America, GM Europe, GM International Operations and GM South America. General

Motors North America sells vehicles to the U.S. Canada and Mexico. The GM North

America generates 65% of its total sales. General Motors Europe manufactures and

sells to every part of Europe and Russia with 14% of sales. General Motors

International Operations sells to Asia, Middle East, Africa with 9% of its sales. General

Motors South America sells and manufactures vehicles to Brazil and Argentina and

other places in South America. GM South America generate 8% of its sales. General

Motor has more than 100 locations in the US and 15 locations in Canada. those

locations assembly, manufacturing, distribution, office, or warehousing operations in 61

other countries.General Motor Financial has 46 facilities, 22 of which are in the US. Its

major facilities outside the US are in Canada, the UK, Brazil, and Spain. The US

facilities generated around 60% of its total sales in 2014. GM sells cars and truck to

customers, rental car companies, and government. GM sells its vehicles through an

independent distributers. GM has over 20,700 dealership. It spends about $5 billion

each year in advertising. In 2010, GM ranked second on the list with 8.5 million units

produced globally. In 2011, GM returned to the first place with 9 million units produced

globally, corresponding to 11.9% of the market share globally.

What is being used, and how:

As very little information could be found about the Computer Integrated manufacturing

software used by GM most of what follows is speculation. First for what could be found,

GM developed their own Manufacturing automation protocol (MAP), that allows their

machines to communicate with each other, and a central computer system. This was in

1986 or before, so it can be speculated that they have built upon this protocol, and

expanded it since then. GM makes cars that are very complex so it is assumed that they

use CAD software to design their products. This would probably be used to design each

component, and also assemblies. This is probably used in conjunction with CAE

software that would allow them to simulate the loads on the the whole of the design. and

problems can be found, and fixed before starting to build anything. They probably use

software to design the manufacturing process and the time of it with software. The

assembly is done by a combination of machines and people. this can be controlled and

coordinated by software and computers.