Williams F1, an F1 team that has been in a slump for over a decade, uses Excel to manage its parts
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Founded in 1970, the F1 team Williams F1 is a prestigious team that has won the Drivers' title seven times and the Constructors' title nine times as of 2019. However, since 2000, its performance has stagnated, and in 2023, its Constructors' points are only 7th out of 10 teams. The foreign media outlet The Race points out that the reason for Williams F1's slump is 'parts management using Microsoft Excel.'
The shocking details behind an F1 team's painful revolution - The Race
https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/shocking-details-behind-painful-williams-f1-revolution/
How to make a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet from hell slowed Williams' F1 cars for years
'Williams F1's internal processes are abysmal,' said engineer James Bowles , who will take over as team principal for 2023.
According to The Race, the team's entire machine manufacturing process is extremely inefficient. It has also been pointed out that even if the machine design is carried out on a proper schedule, the actual machine cannot be assembled because the parts management system is not organized. In fact, in the 2024 Williams F1, even on February 21, three weeks before the preseason test, the machine to run was not completed at all.
As a factor in Williams F1's sloppy machine manufacturing process, foreign media The Drive pointed out that 'Williams F1 managed parts inventory on a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet.'
'Williams F1 used spreadsheets to manage the approximately 20,000 parts used in the manufacture of its cars,' Bowles and Williams F1 technical director Pat Fry said in a statement. 'We have relied on such spreadsheets for a number of years, including in the early stages of the 2024 car.'
While spreadsheets may be appropriate for some projects, they are challenging to use in F1, which has annual costs in the tens of billions of yen. In fact, Williams F1 did not include resources in its spreadsheets to track the cost of parts, the time it took to manufacture them, the number of parts, or where they were stored, so the development staff wasted valuable time searching for undocumented parts.
'Williams F1 was using spreadsheets that were just crazy,' Bowles said. 'You couldn't navigate the car or update it. Take a front wing, which has 400 separate parts. You need to know where all those individual components are stored, how long it takes to complete, how long it takes to get it inspected, and if there's an issue with it, you have to reassemble it. When you go through a process like that, Excel spreadsheets just don't cut it.'
According to The Drive, such a complex parts database at Williams F1 was the reason for late participation in the 2019 preseason test. It also led to a slowdown in Williams F1's development during the season, with Williams F1 commenting that the 2023 machine update had 'extraordinary levels of cost'.
However, Williams F1 is moving away from Excel as part of a comprehensive 'technology-based' reform aimed at developing a competitive car. Still, with spreadsheets still being used in various parts of the development department, The Drive said, 'It will be some time before Williams F1 returns to the top of the grid.'
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