Fast and Focused

When Formula One car racing team Caterham tied up with GE in the summer of 2011, the F1 team gained access to GE’s leading-edge technological, R&D and manufacturing resources.  “They’re a fantastic company to work with,” says Caterham’s chief technical officer, Mike Gascoyne. “Speaking as an engineer, their technology and innovation centers are very inspiring places to be and they’re very strong in areas that are highly relevant to us.

Dr Carlos Härtel, Managing Director at GE’s Global Research Centre Europe, also emphasizes the importance of technology developments, describing how companies like GE can boost Grand Prix with engineering. And of course there is something in it for GE as well, he says.

„F1 teams are really good at being fast and totally focused on a specific deliverable. (…) “And they get instant feedback because when they do something successfully, it’s confirmed the next Sunday. They have to be rigorous in what they do and what they don’t do and have to come to their desired end state in the fastest possible time, at a certain level of quality. So they have a certain appetite for risk taking – which is very different from the way a classic industrial business like ours works. But in the modern marketplace it’s something we need to be better at.” We can develop a competitive advantage in moving fast: potentially breaking things, but learning from that and re-implementing with a goal of getting a product ready for market well ahead of the competition. It’s a different world from what we are used to – but one we need to learn from.”

You can read the full article with Gascoyne and Härtel here.

Visit the only Grand Prix in the CEE region on July 29 in Budapest, Hungary. You can find the complete 2012 race calendar on this link.