> On Monday, August 7, 2023 at 01:12:10 PM PDT, Bob Bridges
> <[email protected]> wrote:
> building long-haul tractors in the US is apparently a bit of a challenge
> compared to what they do in Europe.
Every country has different challenges of mentality. I'm guessing this refers
to Germany where Mercedes produces big rig Trucks. This mentality spreads
across all industries in Germany including computers. When I lived in Germany,
I experienced many of these challenges but a better example is an English
friend who repaired equipment made in Germany. His job was to go where Germans
refused. For instance, he was sent to repair a 9 spindle lathe in Spain because
the customer did not wait for the correct part. When the lathe failed, the
customer did not have the correct bolt so they hammered a steel rod to get the
lathe temporarily running. Germans wouldn't fix it because it's the customers
responsibility to wait for the correct parts.
On Monday, August 7, 2023 at 01:12:10 PM PDT, Bob Bridges
<[email protected]> wrote:
I remember when Y2K was coming up - I was an employee of an American truck
manufacturer at the time - I thought to myself that although I am a horrible
procrastinator, the CEOs of large corporations surely are more disciplined than
that. THEY wouldn't put off the necessary changes until the last minute! That
was a bit of a shock to my opinions when I encountered reality.
Speaking of gas tanks, building long-haul tractors in the US is apparently a
bit of a challenge compared to what they do in Europe. Perhaps it's because of
the size of our country, or maybe it's something else. But when they sell
tractors in Europe, I gather the options offered are little more varied than
the options you can buy in American-made cars.
With tractors it's very different here. The parts book for a US tractor starts
with a base model and then lets you swap out the base engine for any of twenty
others; transmissions, exhaust stacks, seats, wheels, almost anything can be
selected. Then there are the special orders that a factory engineer has to
price: I remember one customer wanted the battery rack to be moved forward 8
inches to make room for something else, I forget what, and they had to figure
out how much extra to charge for it. When European truck manufacturers started
buying up American companies so as to get into the market, they had a bit of a
shock encountering these complications. But they couldn't simply say "no more
of that"; American customers demand it.
And to bring it back to MVS, building the application that printed off the
parts book for such options was perhaps the most complicated app my coworkers
had ever encountered. (I say "my coworkers" not because my intellect was fully
up to the challenge but because I owned the marketing apps; I never had much to
do with the parts book.)
---
Bob Bridges, [email protected], cell 336 382-7313
/* Men are not angered by mere misfortune but by misfortune conceived as
injury. And the sense of injury depends on the feeling that a legitimate claim
has been denied. The more claims on life, therefore, that your patient can be
induced to make, the more often he will feel injured and, as a result,
ill-tempered. -advice to a tempter, from "The Screwtape Letters" by C S Lewis
*/
-----Original Message-----
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[email protected]> On Behalf Of
Bill Johnson
Sent: Monday, August 7, 2023 15:11
Worked at Revco drug stores a few decades ago. We used to sell shave cream
below cost in order to sell customers large margin items related to shaving.
Blades, razors, & after shave. We had a system designed specifically for this
purpose called market basket analysis. Revco made some bad decisions, went
bankrupt, emerged under a guy called grave dancer, (Sam Zell) who cut to the
bone, and sold Revco to CVS. Making billions.
Companies make bad decisions all the time. The key is to try and make more good
decisions than bad. One thing I’ve found having worked at 15 different
companies is that most managers and executives are no smarter than the low
level employees.
....I’d like more than a 12 gallon gas tank on my hybrid car to increase its
range from 500 miles to 660 but I doubt Toyota is willing to make the Avalon
with 2 gas tank size options.
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