Re: The Perpetual Myth of iSeries Obsolescence -- MIDRANGE-L

Douglas,

Your view is somewhat narrow. It seems to come from doing the same thingover and over. This is typical of a DP Manager, not so typical of a CIO.

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 ofwhat

is best and most efficient for this company.

Your position on having the final say is simply a bottleneck. Shouldn't yourBUSINESS have the final say on what is good for the business?

Without question, there are so many business process improvements you couldmake that would remove green screen entirely, save your company money, etcetc.


You give an example:

As one finite example, dispatchers do not involve themselves with driverpay
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 workingwiththe driver to keep them happy. This model allows us to focus ourattention
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 othercarriers
that use this approach.
With that example in mind, a dispatcher does not need to concernthemselves
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 thespecific
information if needed.

What if their were RFID tags that could be used to capture what is on adispatch. This one simple technological breakthrough would remove most ofthe human interaction, and ALL of the data entry - with the exception ofsome confirmation process - hmmm, a mouse click maybe?

I have examples of companies with a small investment in RFID fordispatching, and their efficiency has improved, their accuracy rates are up,and no one is standing around a green screen any more. It seems to me thatyou are looking at the simple comparison of green vs. GUI and not looking atnew technologies that could improve the business processes.

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

This is a completely narrow and outdated perspective. It applies ONLY topeople familiar with green screens. EVERYone else already knows how to use aGUI. And, when a GUI uses things that are intuitive - likepictures/icons/tool tip text and so on - the learning curve is reducedsignificantly. Now you can focus on teaching them their JOB, not what thecodes mean.