Ferrari is forced to throttle back on technology costs

The F1 team hopes an overhaul of its IT will help to maintain its competitive edge

Ferrari's F1 team hopes its IT overhaul will help reduce costs through better vehicle lifecycle management

Ferrari is introducing a series of measures to cut the cost of its IT systems as it faces mounting pressure from Formula One’s governing body to reduce spending.

The F1 team has been through an IT investment review, so further belt-tightening will mean a shift in strategic technology planning, said Piergiorgio Grossi, head of information systems at Ferrari Racing.

“Budgets have already been cut and the situation may get worse,” Grossi told Computing.

“We are facing pressure from the teams and audiences to continue performing, as well as regulatory requirements combined with the financial instability.”

This week, the International Automobile Federation (FIA) is due to discuss cost-cutting initiatives with all 10 F1 teams, which could include the introduction of standard engines in Grand Prix cars.

The FIA will look at ways of making “very significant and urgent reductions in costs,” while “maintaining a competitive element”. This will mean improvements in systems such as enterprise resource planning, for more supply chain visibility.

Ferrari has also made significant investment in new technology, such as a partnership with Microsoft to use its high-performance computing (HPC) system, Windows HPC Server 2008, for automotive engineering, design and development.

The system covers areas such as aerodynamics and represents 20 per cent of the manufacturer’s IT budget for 2008. It co-exists with Linux-based HPC systems.

“There is room for both [Windows and Linux] in our structure and we are keen to have a multi-vendor environment to encourage innovation and productivity,” said Grossi.

With HPC, Ferrari hopes to see benefits such as predicting and preventing vehicle failures and gathering real-time information from cars.

The company expects to save money through better vehicle lifecycle management, said head of IT Dario Castello.

“Payback is a tough concept, as it is not just about total cost of owners hip. We also think of the expertise available and what fits best with our existing infrastructure and the cost of adding things to it, so not a simple equation,” said Castello.

“We want to generate cost synergies by improved use of data that is business critical. HPC offers the possibility to improve driver performance and production because we can anticipate results, therefore saving time as well as money,” he said.

For competitive and economic reasons, Ferrari’s racing team relies on bespoke development for the majority of critical applications such as simulations, repairs and telemetry.

Agile methodologies such as extreme programming are used by the manufacturer’s software development team, which releases new system versions every two weeks to keep up with advances from its engineering division and with the fast-paced nature of the business, where mobile IT offices are assembled for each race.

“It is essential that we deliver a seamless experience at each race and IT plays a significant part in the process. We deal with machine improvement but our technology function must work like a machine too, a very efficient one,” said Grossi.