Re: The Perpetual Myth of iSeries Obsolescence

True, however since I am in the unique position of having the final say on 
this issue as it pertains to my company, it is what it is and despite what 
the general market may think or say I will always take the approach of what 
is best and most efficient for this company.

There may come a time when the benefits of a web interface outweigh the 
costs and deficiencies and when that happens I will give it a very close 
look.

Most of what we do is backend processing, rote data entry, and providing 
information to our employees and customers.  5250 gives us the benefit of 
keeping the information to a minimum (screen space limitation) so that we 
are only dealing with what is absolutely necessary.

Some may think it would be beneficial to have advance information, 
truck/trailer/driver continuity history, check call history, not to mention 
customer/pickup/delivery/stop off information available on one screen, 
however I have to ask the question "is it necessary to perform the job 
functions?"

Our business model is structured in a way that the employees can concentrate 
on their specific area of responsiblity and do not need to concern 
themselves with incidental or non-relevant information.

As one finite example, dispatchers do not involve themselves with driver pay 
issues, home time issues, advances, personal matters, etc.  They are 
responsible to ensure that the trucks in their particular market are 1. 
picking up on time and delivering on time.  That is their sole 
responsibility.  Nothing more and certainly nothing less.  The fleet 
coordinator is responsible for handling the driver needs and they do not 
involve themselves in dispatch matters, except to the extent of working with 
the driver to keep them happy.  This model allows us to focus our attention 
on the responsibilities as they have been assigned and we are far more 
efficient with it.  It is unique, and I am aware of only two other carriers 
that use this approach.

With that example in mind, a dispatcher does not need to concern themselves 
with advances, payroll information, etc.  So why display that information 
for them?  What they see (5250) is a listing of the truck no, trailer no, 
deliv date, time, cust no and from that subfile they can select the specific 
information if needed.

As I said earlier, our view is unique to our business model and needs.

I would also say that from a training perspective, learning a menu driven 
system is far easier than links, butttons, drop down lists, etc.  although I 
am quite sure others will disagree with that statement.


On Wed, 03 May 2006 15:11:40 -0700, Rob Dixon wrote
> Douglas
> 
> Douglas W. Palme wrote:
> > Without wanting to sound as if I am completely negative, I could not 
> > disagree with you more.  I am of course only looking at this from the 
> > perspective of our industry, and more time is wasted playing with the g-
d 
> > forsaken mouse and clicking on buttons than anything else I have ever 
seen.
> >   
> I entirely agree.  People tend to assume that if they are busy 
> playing with the mouse and clicking, then they are being productive 
> when in fact they are using a very inefficient interface. However, I 
> feel that this is an argument that we cannot win. The market place 
> will ignore anyone who doesn't pander to its requests.
> 
> Surely the way round this is to enable the function keys in web 
> pages so that users can operate in "5250" mode in their browser 
> window if they wish.  Maybe, if they start with pointing and 
> clicking, they will learn there is an easier and more productive 
> way.  I have done this and am for ever the optimist!
> 
> Rob Dixon
> www.erros.co.uk
> 
> -- 
> This is the Midrange Systems Technical Discussion (MIDRANGE-L) 
> mailing list To post a message email: MIDRANGE-L@xxxxxxxxxxxx To 
> subscribe, unsubscribe, or change list options, visit: 
> http://lists.midrange.com/mailman/listinfo/midrange-l or email: 
> MIDRANGE-L-request@xxxxxxxxxxxx Before posting, please take a moment 
> to review the archives at http://archive.midrange.com/midrange-l.


If you bought it, it was hauled by a truck - somewhere, sometime.