People Exploration

By Kevin Meyer

While perusing today's Parade Magazine supplement in the Sunday paper, between a recipe for soup and a weight loss ad, I came across an interview with Stephen Hawking.  Always an interesting perspective, and today I was not disappointed, especially when I came across this tidbit:

Q You’re a big proponent of human space exploration. Couldn’t we discover the same things with less difficulty and risk using robots? 

A Similar knowledge might be obtained by robots, but humans are an adventurous species. We like to explore and are inspired by journeys to the unknown. Science is not only a disciple of reason but, also, one of romance and passion. Exploration by real people inspires us.

It made me think a bit, and not just because I was looking for random fodder that could be stretched into a weekend blog post.  Regular readers know I'm not exactly a big fan of robots and software when a human could do better.

• The most efficient auto assembly plant in the world happens to be in a high labor cost country and only uses robots for operations that pose potential safety issues.  That same auto assembly plant manufactures five or six radically different vehicles, in units of one in any random order, yet has no computers on the shop floor - it's all manual kanban.
• Computerized shop floor control systems often lead to massive expenditures to keep the system up and running, often force conformity to what the software developer believed to be an optimum process without making it easy to implement improvements, and take the human out of the equation.  Unlike a white board.
• Some companies actually promote, and then have the gall to disrespect, their shop floor robots.  Somehow they thought that robots are an advantage - well we know what happened to one such company.

The reason, as I've said many times, is that there's a valuable brain attached to the supposedly costly pair of hands.  Robots don't have brains, robots can't create suggestions for improvement, robots can't ask "why?" over and over to get at the real root cause of an issue and thereby develop a real solution, and robots can't piece together seemingly unrelated sets of data to explore a new direction that may appear illogical.

Robots do processes.  People explore and improve processes.

Comments

[William Pietri]

Well said, and thanks for the links.

As a software developer, I often end up in discussions about the best tool for managing software projects. I tell people to use index cards. It's not that I haven't tried the other solutions. It's just that the fancy new technology isn't yet as flexible or engaging as the old tech of pens, index cards, and wall-mounted racks.

[Jim Fernandez]

William:

Ha !! I love your comment about index cards.

I have a collection of about 1000 hotel luggage labels. I have had this collection for 45 years. When computers first came out I said “oh boy, now I can organized and keep track of my collection!” I brought a Tandy 1000 computer and entered all of the information into a data base program.

Eventually I did this three more times with three different computers and three different data base programs. This took many hours. I could never figure out how to convert the data to the newer program so I had to re-enter all of the data.

About 12 years ago I put the whole collection on index cards in a file box. What a relief ! Now I can find information on any label in my collection quickly and easily. And it’s amazing how the speed and accuracy of the index card seems to keep up with the advancement and improvement of software and computers!?!?!?

[Wes]

This article got me thinking about a term attributed to Jeff Bezos called "Artifical Artifical Intellegence 'AAI'."

http://www.seattlepi.com/business/247152_turk04.html

[david foster]

I'd note that the "people explore & improve processes" effect happens only when management empowers them to care about the processes and to express opinions about them...and to take action accordingly.

A horrible counterexample is provided by the typical call center environment, in which the front-line employee feels he has no more control over the systems and procedures in use than over next week's weather. Meanwhile, the executives in charge of these places spend millions on consulting and on "business intelligence" systems.

An Israeli general remarked that "there is no substitute for the alert and intelligent infantryman." Ditto for front-line employees.