General Motors Awards Engineers for Technical Innovation

DETROIT, June 12—Today, General Motors announced the winners of the annual “Boss” Kettering awards, one of GM’s most prestigious engineering achievements. The sixty-eight award winners from thirteen teams will be recognized at a ceremony on Tuesday, June 26, at the GM Heritage Center in Sterling Heights, Mich.

The “Boss” Kettering awards are GM’s highest internal recognition for technical innovation. The award is named for GM’s Charles F. “Boss” Kettering, the first head of GM’s Research and Development Laboratories and the originator of more than 140 patents. General Motors created the “Boss” Kettering award in 1976, on Charles F. Kettering’s 100th birthday to recognize GM researchers, scientists and engineers for bold new ideas and contributions. The awards honor individuals from every region of the globe whose outstanding inventions and innovations have demonstrated technological leadership and identifiable benefit to General Motors during the previous year.

“Boss Kettering award winners have a unique and important role in our company’s success,” said Jim Queen, GM Group Vice President, Global Engineering. “As stretch thinkers and drivers of innovation, you serve as role models for everyone at GM, displaying the spirit, the determination and the commitment needed to lead the way in the 21st century.”

One of this year’s award winners showcase GM’s Maintenance Toolbox

The Maintenance Toolbox is a real-time plant floor decision support tool which provides prioritized maintenance alerts, preventive maintenance opportunity window notification, throughput analysis, prioritized lists of failing machine components based on a total cost approach, and uses predictive maintenance techniques to optimize preventive maintenance intervals. The system enables the identification of machine components that have the largest cost impact considering frequency of failure, downtime and component cost, facilitating maximum manufacturing throughput.

The Maintenance Toolbox Development for GM Powertrain Plants award winners are: Venkat Ram Dwibhashyam from GM Powertrain Manufacturing Engineering; Basel Shadid from the GM Powertrain St. Catharine’s Engine Plant; Leandro Barajas, Stephan Biller, Qing Chang, and Guoxian Xiao from GMNA Research & Development; and Pulak Bandyopadhyay from GM Research & Development - India.