January 20, 2015
Tuesday afternoon Hoosier Racing Tire in Plymouth showed off their server room which houses the equipment for their new Metronet fiber connection.
Hoosier Tire was one of the private businesses that joined the public private partnership to bring dark fiber to Marshall County from South Bend. Other participants included Marshall County, the City of Plymouth, Saint Joseph County, Saint Joseph Regional Medical Center and Saint Joseph Valley Metronet.
Craig Benninghoff, V.P. of Operations and John DeSalle, V.P. of Engineering and Manufacturing hosted Marshall County Commissioner Kevin Overmyer, Mayor Mark Senter and Marshall County Economic Development Corporation Executive Director Jerry Chavez for a tour of the new equipment installed in their facility.
DeSalle said, “You can’t even tell that we are running between the two facilities. Transferring data and documents is immediate, like you are sitting in Lakeville accessing data right there.”
Benninghoff said, “Having the Metronet removed the limits from us.”
The machines that are used to manufacture the tires Hoosier Tire makes are all run by personal computers with highly skilled employees working together. Technology now plays a big part in manufacturing at Hoosier Tire.
DeSalle noted that working between the two locations is challenging with communications and much of that is done with phones. He said, “Face to face conversation is best and with the Metronet we are now starting to look at video conferencing.”