On Thursday, September 08, 2005 12:14 PM [PDT], Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> Leigh Meyers wrote:
>
>> I was attempting to clarify the extent of:
>>> *Everything* is coordinated out of Bentonville;
>>
>> That's all.
>
> Well it's pretty much everything. Store managers can't adjust the
> thermostats in their stores without permission. Every sale is in the
> Bentonville computers within an hour. They monitor weather forecasts
> to manage shipments - the gee-whiz example in that excellent CNBC
> special on them was that demand for poptarts goes up in advance of a
> hurricane, so they send out plenty of poptarts to the stores that
> aren't underwater.
I'm trying to keep the issue of "centralization of operation" value-neutral.
I guess it depends on your point of reference to the purpose and goal of centralization in an industrial organization.
The first point sounds petty, but probably saves the company millions a year directly and gets them all sorts of energy efficiency breaks indirectly. (sometimes from the suppliers directly, sometimes tax breaks or credits).
The store manger would just set the thermostat to a temperature suitable for shopping(68), not a temperature suitable for a pleasant work experience.
I've worked in machine shops where the temp was always betwwen 67 an 71 degrees due to the tolerance of measurement... .0001", so I wore a heavier shirt and didn't complain. I guess I could have found something else to do for a living, but honestly, it never dawned on me, any more than it would dawn on me to quit driving truck because I was required to drive, and oftentimes load a truck, in the rain.
Store managers aren't the sharpest pencil in the box ya know. They are generally as knowledgable as the seminars and consultants that train them.
Lets talk regional manager, then you are getting in range of someone who *might* have some business acumen(for better or worse), and the ability to make a case for having the temperature changed although the company might prefer not.
The second point: You can thank modern databases for the inventory control/restocking efficiencies, but sales and cash has been monitored almost in realtime for a long long time... probably before the internet.
Third point: Monitoring weather to manage shipments? Hell! They monitor the trucks, the shipping boxes... in the packaging of the product(rfid).
I tracked my Koss Pro4-AA headphone purchase via Amazon from J&R music in NY from UPS distribution point... to point... to my doorstep. Why not weather, if it helps the product move more efficiently?
I've driven trucks with a recording thermometer in back, and if the temp went above... I forget now, for more than so many minutes, the load would be refused by the receiver and returned. Nowadays, here in the future, that's all monitored in realtime by datalink transmissions on sat bands, and frequencies that used to be public domain & access.
My point is: Where is all the data coming from before it gets centralized? The data comes IN to the central point, and (hopefully) it gets used to make the de-centralized part function more effectively, if not more efficiently, and it ALL works together, like one big happy (Walton) family, to the enrichment of everyone!
Of course, the (central) brain ALWAYS thinks it's the boss.
The question is: What happens when it's the asshole too! (bad old joke... bad.)
At least they didn't try to say that the pop-tarts (giggle) were food for the relief effort, or did they?
Leigh www.leighm.net