Re: The Perpetual Myth of iSeries Obsolescence

Douglas,

Trevor

To: "Midrange Systems Technical Discussion" <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, May 03, 2006 10:33 AM
Subject: Re: The Perpetual Myth of iSeries Obsolescence

My view is from several perspectives Trevor:

1. I am always willing to evaluate new methodologies and practices, but it
is also from the perspective of what works for us and our unique model.
RFID would be difficult to implement as we are a long haul carrier and

logistics firm and therefore by its very nature we do not initially produce

the paperwork, or control what freight is loaded.

2. Our operation is streamlined to a point that we are operating at a 12 to

1 ratio of non-driver personnel and for this industry that is better than
99% of the carriers out there.

3. In evaluating GUI, I have to consider what the costs would be in making
the conversion and what benefit will we see added to the bottom line as a

result of the conversion and right now as I have said before, the costs far

outweigh any significant benefit.

4. Probably the most important issue is this, it is my money at stake here,

not some far off investor or partner that shares in the final decision
making process.

I have not spent my entire life looking at green screens, so your

observation is based on information that you do not have available. I have

spent a considerable (12 years) amount of time working with, using and
coding GUI interfaces; granted not on an iSeries but that part is not
probative to this discussion.  A GUI is a GUI is a GUI regardless of the
plaform.

The business model we have put into place has yielded an O/R of 84.7% (1st
qtr) and I challenge anyone to show me where changing to a GUI or
implementing RFID will improve that?

I appreciate your perspective Trevor, whether you realize that or not, I

just have not been able to reach a point where the benefits are significant enough to justify such a major overhaul of not only our system but our model.

Douglas


On Wed, 3 May 2006 10:12:06 -0500, Trevor Perry wrote

Douglas,

Your view is somewhat narrow. It seems to come from doing the same
thing over 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 of
> what
> is best and most efficient for this company.

Your position on having the final say is simply a bottleneck.
Shouldn't your BUSINESS have the final say on what is good for the

business?

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

You give an example:

> 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.

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

I have examples of companies with a small investment in RFID for
dispatching, 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 that you are looking at the simple comparison of green
vs. GUI and not looking at new 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.

although

> I
> am quite sure others will disagree with that statement.

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

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