Macomb County Executive Mark A. Hackel, 51, said the automotive sector is heading in new directions and pointed to recent “wins” involving the Detroit Three, who are among the county’s top employers. The Democrat, who represents 27 communities located just north of bankrupt Detroit, noted that automakers and suppliers have made $2 billion in investments during the past three years, and Macomb is home to more than 40,000 automotive industry jobs.
There is a new General Motors (much derided as Government Motors by NeoCons) investment of $130 million for a growing data center at its huge engineering complex in Warren that is designed to save GM operating costs and is scheduled for completion in 2015. GM already has hired more than 700 IT specialists to work at what it calls Innovation Centers in Austin, Texas, and Warren, Michigan. (General Motors to Open a Third IT Center in Georgia)There is also Ford Motor’s multi-million dollar expansion of its Van Dyke Transmission Plant in Sterling Heights; the plant is the only producer of the front-wheel-drive hybrid transmissions in North America.
The Ram 1500, built at the Warren Truck Assembly Plant and named 2014 Truck of the Year by Motor Trend, has seen Chrysler Group invest millions of dollars into the truck plant.Hackel said the investments and addition of hundreds of jobs created are signs that the Detroit Three are committed to Macomb County. The Democratic county executive, entering his fourth year as Macomb County’s CEO, delivered his speech before a crowd of about 1,200 people, with outgoing Detroit Mayor Dave Bing, among the politicians present.
There are a lot more “IT Specialists” than 700. There will be about 10k. And they are not “IT Specialists” – they are software programmers and developers, because GM is planning on writing and developing their own software, rather than purchasing it from other sources, such as Microsoft, etc. This is their plan to cut future operating costs. IT Specialist is usually used to describe someone that builds or manages an infrastructure. In this case, we are talking software developers.
Also part of the story is the fact that there is a shortage of Software Developers. GM knows this. They plan to alleviate this by having 2 other sites besides Austin and Warren. This is going to cost them a lot of money to start – but if it works, it will not only save them money, but set them apart from the other manufacturers because anyone in the IT industry knows software drives hardware – in this case, the hardware is cars. If they can develop software that no one has even thought of, their cars will have options and capabilities that no other company can provide. That is their ultimate goal.