Group project

IN320

OnStar

Arne Johan Sunde

Øyvind Bjerkan

Per-Inge Norang

07. April 2000

OnStar.

An introduction.

When we picked the subject for this report, none of us had heard anything about OnStar before. We started to look for information on the web. This search for information resulted in the following understanding.

OnStar, an in-vehicle information capability, is an information system (IS), which is installed in some of General Motors (GM) new cars. It provides more safety, security and more detailed service for the driver. OnStar provides drivers with satellite-based positioning information (for instance, to help you get your bearings in an unfamiliar city) and automatically dispatches roadside service when needed. OnStar can trace stolen cars and give the position to the police. You can unlock the car with a phone-call to the OnStar center, if you forget your keys or lock them inside the car. The system already have 75.000 customers in the United States (US), but GM hopes to reach around one million users at the end of year 2000.

The following is taken from the official OnStar web page:

"OnStar combines a unique blend of cutting-edge technology with attentive, personal service to provide you with unparalleled safety, security and convenience. OnStar uses sophisticated Global Positioning System satellites to locate your vehicle along with a special, hands-free cellular phone, which provides a communications link and seamless integration into the electrical wiring in your vehicle. Add a professionally staffed OnStar Center that's available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and driving becomes less hectic and more worry-free."

The primary users of this IS are the people that buy/uses/drives the cars that have it installed. GM can also be considered a user of this system, as they use it as a strategic IS for collecting information about their cars and how to improve them.

What is the OnStar System?

OnStar, a new division of General Motors, is the result of the combined efforts of Hughes Electronics communications and satellite technology, EDS systems development and customer service expertise, and General Motors world-class vehicle design and distribution system.

The word that best describes OnStar is Telematics. Telematics is a buzzword coined for the convergence of wireless technologies, global positioning systems, and onboard technologies. The auto giants have long talked up a future in which smart vehicle’s zip along smart highways, and GPS navigation units have already become the nerd equivalent of a CD changer. Telematics connects the dots between the speculative hype and the new infotainment age by putting at the driver's fingertips a bundle of safety, route guidance, convenience, and entertainment services. Within a few years, motorists will take for granted reminders to head south at the next interchange or news that a Chevron station and a Burger King can be found up ahead. Before long, your car may even email you an alert that its transmission will soon require maintenance.

With 250 employees, OnStar is a speck on GM's corporate org chart. OnStar has 2 service centers placed in Denver, which are open at all times. For now only one-third of GM cars are equipped with the OnStar system, but by 2002 GM are planning to make it standard equipment on all of its 5 million cars and trucks that roll off its assembly lines.

Behind the wheel, OnStar is designed to keep driver distractions to a bare minimum. The GPS receiver and 9-inch whip antenna sit discreetly on the car’s exterior; the overhead three-button console (linked to an embedded 3-watt phone) is inconspicuous but close at hand. To start a typical OnStar service request, you press the blue button. A recorded voice - sounding a bit like HAL's spooky kid sister - chimes in over the car stereo: "Connecting to OnStar." Then a cheerful adviser greets you by name, identifies your location, and asks how he or she may be of service. In more grave situations, the red emergency button gives priority access to the call center. And, of course, if the air bags inflate, the call center is alerted automatically.

Services provided

GM offers two different packages

  • Safety and security package
  • Premium Service package
The Safety and Security package:

This package is an affordably priced plan that offers safety and security at the touch of button. With this package you are covered for practically any type of emergency while behind the wheel.

  • Automatic notification of Air Bag Deployment
  • Emergency services
  • Remote Door Unlock
  • Theft Protection
  • OnStar Med-Net
  • Accident Assist
  • Remote diagnostic of the cars health
The OnStar Premium Service Plan:

The OnStar Premium Service Plan offers extensive safety, security and convenience/information services, transforming your car into a communications center to help you get more things done.

  • Automatic notification of Air Bag Deployment
  • Emergency services
  • Remote Door Unlock
  • Theft Protection
  • OnStar Med-Net
  • Accident Assist
  • Remote diagnostic of the cars health
  • Convenience/Information services
  • Route support
  • Ride Assist
  • Concierge services
Emergency Services

By pressing the red button, the OnStar services center will contact the nearest emergency provider with your exact location and your request for help. By pressing the button on the OnStar handset, your emergency call will take priority status on an Advisor’s screen and send them your location information.

Concierge Services

The OnStar concierge is ready to help you get tickets to the hard-to-get Broadway play, ordering flowers or even help you plan your next vacation. OnStar concierge Advisors are specially trained and well connected to make all the arrangements you need - at home or on the road.

With over five million individual listings available at the touch of a button - from airlines to zoos - OnStar makes it easy to find just about anything.

Convenience/Information Services

The OnStar Advisor can help you with a host of convenience services, from suggesting a hotel to making restaurant reservations. OnStar Advisors have over five million service listings from which to choose, including everything from auto mechanics to zoos. For example, there are more than 90,000 hotels and resorts, 500,000 restaurants, 90,000 cash machines and 70,000 service stations listed and plotted on the Advisors' computer maps. And all the listings are updated regularly, so you are assured that you will receive the most current information available.

Airbag Deployment Notification

Automatic notification of air bag deployment is one of the most important features of OnStar. In the event of an accident in which your front air bag deploys, the OnStar system will attempt to contact you to inquire whether you need assistance. Even if you can't answer, they contact emergency help and provide them with your exact location.

RideAssist

Ride Assist - OnStar subscribers can call and request a taxicab should they be incapable of driving. If no cab is available, we will try to contact a family member or friend

AccidentAssist

Accident Assist - Provides step-by-step guidance about what to do in an accident. Working with leading insurance companies, we have developed a "best practices" list to assist you through most accident situations.

OnStar MED-NET

OnStar MED-NET - Securely stores your personal medical history (e.g. physician's name, blood type, allergies, and medications) and allows emergency personnel access to this information simply by providing an OnStar Advisor with your OnStar Med-Net identification number.

Theft Protection

OnStar doesn't just protect you - it protects your vehicle, too. If your vehicle is ever stolen, one simple call to the OnStar Center will track your vehicle and quickly lead police right to it — to help minimize potential damage.

Route Support

An OnStar Advisor can help you find your way to anywhere you want to go, whether you need street directions or guidance to nearby gas stations, hotels or ATMs. If desired, you can record the directions with your OnStar handset and replay them as needed

Roadside Assistance

Your OnStar Advisor can help you get out of roadside trouble quickly and easily. Whether it's a flat tire, an empty gas tank, or being stranded on the side of the road, simply pressing the OnStar button on your handset sends your vehicle's location to the OnStar Center where an Advisor can help get you on your way again.

Remote Door Unlock

The problem: You've locked your keys in your car. The solution: Call OnStar with your Personal Identification Number or Security Code Word. An OnStar Advisor can send a signal to unlock your door; OnStar can also flash your exterior lamps and sound your horn if you are having trouble locating your vehicle.

OnStar - A Strategic Information System

The purpose of a strategic information system is to assist an organization to reach a goal, usually by trying to achieve a competitive advantage in the market. OnStar is such a strategic information system, and is meant to help General Motors Corp. (GM) to gain more customers as well as keeping the existing ones.

Strategically OnStar is important for GM because this system offers a range of services no other competitors provide at this moment. So has GM gained the lead over its competitors.

When OnStar was introduced in the United States in late autumn 1996, it already existed a couple of similar systems like BMW's Phillips CARIN (satellite navigation) and Ford's RESCU (emergency service). Nevertheless none of these could provide all the services OnStar provided, but opposite could OnStar provide the same services as its competitors in addition to a set of other services. So had OnStar brought GM in position regarding to this market.

One of General Motors' goals is that the customers will experience OnStar as a valuable element in the car. The facilities provided day and night the whole year around will according to OnStar's website, make the driving less hectic and more worry-free.

OnStar's structure allows new services easily to be included in the system as they are being evolved. This opens for strategic alliances between General Motors and other companies that offer services GM don't. As Mike Peterson, OnStar's director of strategic alliances, said in 1998: "We link with those companies that have the capabilities we don't, but whose service or product would benefit our customer base, and vice versa."

One of the facilities of OnStar, the remote diagnostics, might provide the driver a useful diagnose of the car's engine. More important is that this facility makes GM capable of easily creating a database over the results of such remote diagnostics. In this way GM can analyze the database and find patterns which can tell where problems most frequently appears. Such datamining can help GM to decide where to improve their car engines. OnStar will undoubtedly give General Motors a better overview of their customers and their cars as the OnStar databases grow.

The value of OnStar

GM gets three important advantages by implementing such a system.

  • Sale
  • Product development
  • New services

Today in modern cars all electronic equipment is connected with each other. A garage can connect the cars ”computer” with one in the garage and do a complete scan of the condition of the car. By doing this the garage most likely will spend less time doing fail searching.

The OnStar system further develop this existing system by being able to analyze the condition of the car when a user give OnStar a message that the car is not functioning properly. Later on the car will also be able to do this automatically. By doing this the OnStar center can also give the actual information to a garage already before the car is on its way to get service.

GM can with this system easier build a large database, which they at the end can use to get the parts that get broken first. OnStar can make such a collection easier than it is today.

By offering the services OnStar has, a user will get a better relationship to the car, in such a way that when it is time to by a new car the user might choose one of GM cars on the basic that it has the OnStar system.

A user of such a system might possibly feel that he/she gets more out of the car trip. Since the user can ask for road assistance to get faster to the destination, or order a ticket to a concert.

With the help of the available services OnStar can offer, the customer/user would get extra services that could be good to have in certain situations. This is service within fields such as accident, theft and diagnosis of the car’s condition. GM will therefore get an advantage over their competitors.

By offering these services GM also would get an extra income. Users would pay to use these available services.

Risk Analysis

OnStar’s View

One of the most important elements in the concept of OnStar is the Global Positioning System (GPS) is developed and controlled by the U.S. Department of Defense. GPS has relatively recently been made available for civilian applications. This system determines the position (longitude and latitude) within an accuracy of about 100 meters. Is this good enough for the OnStar Center who may guide a driver in a city where parallel streets are closer than 100 meters? What if the U.S. Department of Defense closes the GPS system or changes the access policy? At all it's a risk to make yourself dependent of a system you don't control yourself.

For the moment analogue cellular phones serves OnStar's conduit to the outside world. The analogue cellular phone network delivers the most nationwide coverage, but at the price of low bandwidth (2400 baud) that can't support simultaneous voice and data communications. When more modern digital mobile phone networks expand, GM has to start using this technology to keep ahead of their competitors regarding to the services provided. This will increase the running expenses of OnStar because both the analogue and the digital version of OnStar have to be managed. If the users of the analogue version are expelled, this will give GM a significantly bad reputation.

Some points which may give OnStar bad reputation:

  • If unauthorized persons get access to someone’s remote door unlock code, name and registration number, they can easily get the car opened by calling the OnStar Center. This is a significant weakness of the system.
  • If any components of the communication device inside the car turn out to be vulnerable and often destroyed in car crashes resulting in a useless system, this will affect customers trust in OnStar.
  • Competitors who adopt more modern technology in their systems may get more attention and press coverage, and in this way a better reputation then the OnStar system.
Other points of consideration.
  • Technology today is improving constantly. A PC for instance has a lifetime for about 3 years today. A car on the other hand, has a lifetime for more than ten years. Sometimes as much as 30 years. How can the OnStar system handle the constant improvement in technology?
  • If the OnStar wishes to start their system in other countries, do they have to change the technology because of other standards? How will this be cost benefited, will the services be equal? Can a US user on visit use a european system?
  • How easy is it to disconnect the system. (break the GPS antenna, disconnect the phone).
Customers View.
Points of consideration.
  • By agreeing to use such a system, your driving behaviors and interests can be exploited by using the system. The system can be used to harm your personal interest if the information collected gets in the wrong hands (Big brother phenomenon).
  • The OnStar technology is based on a cellular phone system that uses 2400 baud. Because of this when OnStar service personnel are asked to do a diagnosis of your car, they have to put you on hold. OnStar is still at a premature stage, is this good enough for future technologies to come?
  • If you are close to the pacific or close to the Rocky Mountains, the OnStar signal can be weak, therefore as a user you can not trust on the safety and security plan in such a case where you live close to places with bad communication coverage. On the other hand by not having the system, you have no coverage at all.
  • In case you as a driver get into an emergency, are the OnStar personnel good enough trained to respond to your emergency? Can they help you enough if it takes a while for emergency personnel to get there, even though in emergency calls the most experienced personnel will always answer your call?
  • Even though you have these services, will you use them?
  • Does the system add to discounts in cost of insurance policies now or in the nearest future?
  • How much does the OnStar system disturb your driving? OnStar uses a three-button system, and by using such a system the disturbances should be minimal.
  • Only selected firms are included in OnStar’s database. As a user you can drive past several similar businesses on your way to the one you have been directed to.
  • If you have children, their curiosity can lead them to press all buttons in your car. What happens if they press OnStar’s emergency button?

Value Analysis

OnStar’s View

OnStar is undoubtedly a valuable system for General Motors Corp. Even though the system has had significant start-up costs, it has a great market potential. Stephan Beckert, senior consultant at the Strategies Group in Washington DC, predicts that by 2003 the hardware sales attached to OnStar will amount to $240 million and another $162 million in service revenue.