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Rotterdam also has unions to deal with. A colleague of mine, who worked on the software for the final stage (some 15 years back) moving containers onto trucks,
by Maarten88 11y ago
Rotterdam also has unions to deal with. A colleague of mine, who worked on the software for the final stage (some 15 years back) moving containers onto trucks, told a story where, after union negotiations, they implemented a system where forklift truck drivers could choose between three different containers to pick next instead of giving them just one instruction, for the single, most optimal, one.
- macmac 11y agoWhile the unions are arguably stronger on the US East Cost the International Longshore and Warehouse Union at the Oakland terminal certainly isn't a pushover.
- cosmolev 11y agoWhat is the logic behind it? Having an opportunity to select is more entertaining to the driver?
- chime 11y agoI am in the middle of writing directed pick/put module for a warehouse. I just had a meeting last week on the exact same topic. My software gives the user the most optimal pick list and the warehouse manager wanted me to change it so his team could pick from alternate bins. His justifications: 1. My software doesn't know that there is a cart/ladder/forklift blocking the most optimal bin while the bin next to it is easily accessible. 2. My software cannot tell if QC is in middle of sampling or if Inventory team is in middle of cycle counting that exact bin. 3. My software doesn't factor in changes in real-world that have not yet been inputted into the computer system. So if there is spillage, quantity, or quarantine issues that haven't been scanned into the system yet, my software calculates the optimal bin incorrectly. It's not that code cannot calculate what optimal means given a set of requirements. It's just that the end-user might be in a better position to decide if it really is optimal or not.