AKRON, Ohio—Bridgestone celebrated the grand re-opening of its Akron Data Center April 18 with a special ribbon cutting ceremony.
The $17.3 million renovation project, which began in July 2015 and concluded in February, centralizes all of the company's five data systems into one location. The 10,000-sq.-ft. building is designed to protect data and software from a variety of natural disasters. Precautions include redundancies in power feed, multiple generators, power distribution and cooling systems.
“With a business as large and diverse as ours, our IT infrastructure is part of the backbone of what we do every day,” Robert Olds, acting chief information officer for Bridgestone Americas Inc., said. “It's not only our people, but our processes, our systems, our hardware, everything working together with the business to keep things rolling.”
The data center will house about 80 IT employees, as well as an additional 60 employees in a print shop, which also is located in the building.
The floor plan includes space for future expansion.