Conference 7.286::digital

    Let me guess that:
    
      1 the current information systems were developed in isolation of each
        other in the past, to solve point problems
    
      2 no one has ever analyzed the order and supply logistics processes 
        to determine the most efficient process and information systems support
    
    If 2 were to be done, the administration of logistics and supply would
    benefit.
    
    David Goldblatt - Europe I.M.

    Not being close to your part of the Company, I don't understand the
    terms you use, much less the issues (though -.1 makes a lot of sense).
    Why don't you write the issues up and send to the DELTA program, with
    some suggestion for a better way. At least it will be channeled to
    folks who understand (and, we hope) own the problem.
    
    /L

    I believe I was at the same meeting you attended the other day,
    and would like to offer one comment.  The cycle times for the system
    logic you refer to indeed needs some clarification..however the
    486 tower system you refer to will indeed take hours to assemble,
    and that is the plan.  
    
    I get the impression from your note that paragraph #1 and #3 refers
    to the manufacturing process itself, and paragraph #2 refers to
    the systems we use to get an order to the floor and out the door.
    

    RE: .2  and .1
    
    I think you may have touched upon the real problem.  That is, maybe, not
    enough people understand what happens once DEC takes an order from a
    customer.
    
    How can someone analyze the process if no one really understands the
    whole process.  People may understand parts of the process, but not the
    whole process.
    
    Dave
    

    RE: .3
    
    You're right I was in that meeting.  My intent was not to single out
    any one process, but just to use an example.  A point I was trying to
    make is that our processies are far more complex than the products we
    are shipping, at least in the Table Top and PC business.
    
    Dave

    re: .4 and others
    
    >I think you may have touched upon the real problem.  That is, maybe, not
    >enough people understand what happens once DEC takes an order from a
    >customer.
    
    >How can someone analyze the process if no one really understands the
    >whole process.  People may understand parts of the process, but not the
    >whole process.
    
    You're right.
    
    I expressed my concern about Digital having *three* order
    administration systems in a letter to Dan Infante about six weeks ago. 
    I copied DELTA as well, with a request to hold publication.
    
    We have allowed each of the geographies to go its own way with order
    administration.  GIA and US systems disagree on fundamental
    assumptions, about how we measure lead time, for example.  We have been
    working for a year to smooth out this inconsistencies.
    
    That is just the first complexity.
    
    As to an analyst needing to incorporate all the knowledge about all the
    business to plan a solution, it's not necessary.  The discipline of an
    analyst is supposed to prepare him/her to research the business needs
    from scratch, if required.  Of course, the bigger the problem, the
    faster the rate of change, the tougher the job the analyst has and the
    analysis may get out of date before it's finished.  Under those
    circumstances, it seems foolhardy to try to eat the entire elephant by
    oneself. 
    
    Our problem is that we didn't give anyone a big enough charter --
    Design an Order Administration system for Digital.  Instead we gave
    three committees their respective charters, Design an Order
    Administration system for (GIA, US, EUROPE).
    
    It bears repeating that this is not a new problem.  When I joined the
    company in 1976, I heard the same complaints...
    
    Perhaps the real problem is that there is no 'Digital', just a
    collection of cost and profit centers loosely tied together with a
    single person as the focal point.  A class A company will make sure
    that there is adequate communication among the critical mass of Sales,
    Engineering, and Manufacturing, not just at the top, but all up and
    down the chain of command.
    
    Wish us luck,
    
    Dick

    
    
    The problem you are talking about is partly caused by the design
    of our current systems. In todays world most processing is done
    in batch at night. As you might surmise each system causes this
    order cycle time to be increased as it passes through the systems.
    In the future world which is being developed now by OTP all the systems
    will talk to each other using client/server technology and each of
    these current systems will be in theory just modules that sit on a
    order bus. In that world you might see an order entered on the front
    end be loaded,sourced and slotted etc...in seconds. Some of this is
    reality now. It will take a long time and a lot of work to make all
    of these different processes come together. 
    
    
                      RC Wood....

    OTP is reaching its fourth birthday and still can not source a complex
    order.  The investment we have had to make to keep System-T running is
    greater than what many thought it would cost to complete OTP.  We are
    stymied by stove pipes which report to the same manager, let alone the
    three geographies.  GIA looked at the US plans and decided not to wait
    for the committees to plan how to plan to tackle the problem.  Europe
    skipped the exercise entirely and moved forward on its own.
    
    Having been a participant in the OTP process,  I can't tell you the
    frustration I experienced at being told to work on a TOTS replacement
    rather then attempt to understand the entire problem.  The availability
    system's initial logic gave us less than what the ORS switch already
    had.  The commit process required every item to be sourced and have 
    an availability statement in manufacturing lead time days.  It also
    required all items on the order to be commitable by the process or the
    entire order had to go to System-T.
    
    Don't get me wrong a lot of good work has been done on OTP and some day
    if the company survives long enough, we may get a system for complex
    orders.
    
    We have batch systems today, with untold human intervention to slot
    orders and re-slot them every time a change is made to the order or
    manufacturing schedule or.. or...
    
    By placing blinders on and trying to reduce the complexity to solve
    the problem, we extended the time required to build a proper order
    processing system.
    
    We tell our customers to use ACMS and DECintact to build transaction
    systems.  We chose to tackle the problem using PAMS and duplicate the
    monitor functionality available in our TP products.  We say this is
    necessary because of the distributed nature of Order Processing net-
    work.  We tell our customers to use EDI and its electronic documents
    as part of their business communications.  We design our own trans-
    actions for our proprietary PAMS based solution and argue about the
    need for each field of data to be passed from one group to another.
    
    We use the programmers and analyst from the existing systems and ask
    them to develop an interactive version of the current system.  When
    you ask questions like "How will the system allocate material between
    geographies?  Deal with variable lead-times?  Determine proper shipping
    method? or anything else we rely on people to make the decisions today?"
    You get blank stares and statements of that is beyond the scope of the
    current effort.  Automating what is done today simply will not satisfy
    the need of Digital in the 1990's.  We need to simplify the process,
    understand what decisions truly need to be made, and automate the
    decision making based on reasonable business rules.  OTP may get there
    someday, but when I left the effort 14 months ago, it was still not
    asking the right questions and it was not dealing with the detail
    necessary to accomplish the tasks.
    
    I wish the present participants well.  The consolidation of shipping
    facilities and manufacturing plants will limit part of the complexity
    temporarily, but the blinders which refused to deal with the complexity
    will complicate our lives for a lot longer.
    

    We have systems in place today so software only orders go directly to
    SSB from ORS so why can't PC orders go directly to Texas, and PVAX
    orders go directly to ABO, and Calyx orders to directly to BOO.
    
    The PCs and PVAXs are Table Top systems.  Fairly simple to configure,
    yet we have Packaged systems where customers cannot have anything else
    added to the system.  We will ship out the packaged system and a bunch
    of options loose piece for the customer to install, and then we have
    custom systems where the customer pays extra to have the options
    installed.  Regardless of whether a customer wants a Packaged system or
    a custom system the process should be the consistent, quick, and
    simple.
    
    By offering Packaged systems and custom systems DEC has to maintain
    more part numbers, make the SOC larger, and have seperate ordering
    rules.  And now we have Field installed variations for Factory
    installed options.
    
    Do we have to many "Business People" and not enough "Technical People"
    creating the process or vis-a-vis.  Or maybe to many Finance people
    making every group in DEC a mini profit center.  Or maybe to many IS
    people who continue to work in their own little vacuum.

    
    re .9;
    
    I thought one of the purposes behind packaged systems was the
    quick-ship program? If you're shipping a packaged system and field
    upgrades you can do it in 24 hours but if you have to dock-merge it
    that's a different story...
    
    -Ray
    
    

    RE; .10
    
    I believe Table Top systems are simple enough to turn around ANY order
    within 24 hours.  Not just Heath Kits.
    
    If a customer orders a packaged system then all other options are
    suppose to be "Spared", ( shipped loose piece), even options that
    should be installed in the system box.
    
    The "Fast Ship" process still requires someone to maintain a "Menu",
    plus if any thing else is order with it it still has to me merged.