Imagine what it’s like to be responsible for accurately logging in the hours of a company that employs more than 150,000 people in North America, including 30 states and Canada. Now imagine having the nation’s largest union constantly making sure that you are compliant with union rules. This is a situation that calls for a reliable, cost-effective time-management solution. And that’s why General Motors chose IGEL thin clients.

Network Architect for GM North America, Ed Boitkus, is responsible for keeping mainframe operations and connectivity up and running. During his tenure, he has overseen a new trend at GM - the migration from an IBM desktop environment to IGEL thin clients running on Linux.

He recognized that the exacting time-keeping application would prove to be ideal for highly reliable IGEL thin clients to be deployed as a network of some 850 kiosks strategically located at Employee Information Center "oases" that include cafeterias and break rooms. This is part of International Union, United Auto Workers (UAW) requirements for tracking union member time over two week periods. Any problems with inconsistent, interrupted timekeeping could result in union citations against GM. 'Not a good thing,' according to Boitkus.

While a thin client solution made sense, contracts with major manufacturers running in an IBM/Microsoft environment were already in place, and according to Boitkus,' There would have to be a major reason as to why we would go to thin clients and a Linux solution.' But that is exactly what happened. After working within the current environment, a stable solution could not be established. What’s more, the kiosks needed to be reset daily, requiring a significant amount of IT staff time. That opened the door to thin clients, and ultimately IGEL.

According to Boitkus, IGEL thin clients running on Linux and working in conjunction with IBM mainframe and 3270 emulator 'simply worked better' than the competition. For Boitkus, the highly successful rollout of 40 IGEL thin clients was the result of outstanding reliability and support. In addition, the ventilation of the IGEL product was simply better designed to work in the protective UAW kiosk.

As far as Boitkus is concerned, IGEL’s remote management tools and support has further justified his decision. He points to milestones that were invariably met as promised. He also endorses IGEL’s easy-to-use remote management tools that enable him to 'seize control of the units and just try things out.' And he readily offers that the reliability and low maintenance of IGEL thin clients has shortened payback to only two months, making management feel better. And he feels great knowing that every hour of every day of every employee is fully accounted for.

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