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EMPOWERING 21ST CENTURY TECHNOLOGY,
WITH A 19TH CENTURY TECHNOLOGY LESSON.
Bruce Blitch, CIO, Tessenderlo Kerley Inc.
1
CHANGE
“I put a dollar in one of
those change machines...
Nothing changed.”
- George Carlin
2
CHANGE
“It is not necessary to
change...
Survival is not mandatory.”
- W. Edwards Deming
3
EMPOWERING 21ST CENTURY TECHNOLOGY,
WITH A 19TH CENTURY TECHNOLOGY LESSON.
Alternate Title: “Technology change was a problem before the Internet, so now that its cancelled, we’ll still have problems.”
Alternate Title: “Everything I know about inefficiency, I learned from Bees the 19th century railroad industry.”
Alternate Title: “Treating 21st Century Lessions (sic) with 19th
Century Technology.”
Alternate Title: “Randy Beard offered me his Tie, but I don’t wear ‘clip-ons’.”
Bruce Blitch, CIO, Tessenderlo Kerley Inc.
4
“in·no·va·tion”
in·no·va·tion - noun
- The introduction of a
new thing, or method.
5
“me·thod”
me·thod - noun
- A particular process
for accomplishing
something, especially
a systematic one.
6
19th century technology“The true story of Mr. Ben J. Tarbutton”In the 1890’s a small Georgia town built a
three mile rail-link to a neighboring town’s
main-line railroad.
Mr. Ben J. Tarbutton was named President,
and soon the little railroad was very
successful.
As President, he eagerly wrote the president
of the big Pennsylvania Railroad to exchange
rail passes, a common practice among
railroad officials in that day.
The Northerner refused, noting acidly that the
Pennsylvania had thousands of miles of track
connecting major cities while Mr. Tarbutton’s
track was only three miles long.
‘It is true that my railroad may not be as
long as yours,’ Tarbutton is said to
have replied, …
‘but it, sir, is just as wide.’Nesmith, Achsah. “Long, Arduous March Toward Standardization,” Reprinted
from Smithsonian Magazine with Permission, 1985.
7
21st century technology“The innovation of ‘things’.”
Smartphones
In 1946 the world’s first general-purpose electronic computer performed 5,000 instructions per second.
In 1975, the Cray-1 supercomputer performed 800 million instructions per second
Today, the modern smartphone in your pocket could be capable of 2,000 million instructions per second.
8
21st century technology“The innovation of ‘things.”
Data Transmission
The 1939 record for Morse code was equivalent to ⅓ of a page per minute.
Today, a 4G network can transfer the equivalent of over 360,000 pages per second.
9
21st century mobile technology“The innovation of things.”
High Density Barcodes
There is no historic
equivalent to the modern
barcode, except the
written page.
Modern barcodes can
encode many hundreds
of characters in the
space of a large postage
stamp.
10
21st century mobile technology“Where is the innovation for Agriculture?”
11
Apple iPhone
iTunes Store
Category Count
Agriculture Utilities 66
Farm Games +/- 750
Story
21st century technology“Where is the innovation, period?”“Why Aren't Smartphones Making Us More Productive?”
“Even as an estimated 130 million smartphones roam the U.S. streets, economists can't quite find them.”
“Classically defined, an increase in productivity either reduces labor, improves output, or both.
And by that measure, argues Northwestern University economist Robert J. Gordon, the [smartphone]
"has done absolutely nothing" to improve productivity.” *
* Why Aren't Smartphones Making Us More Productive?
U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal , May 1, 2013, Page
B1
BlackBerry
Android Windows Phone
Apple iPhone
12
19th century technology
“Why was ‘just as wide’ so important?”“One of the first railroads in the country, the
South Carolina, … had 136 miles of track by
1833, making it the longest railroad in the
world. It was … built to a 5-foot gauge, and
railroad builders all over the South followed
suit.”**
“American railroads were planned … with
little thought that [they] would eventually
meet.” From the 1830s through the 1850s,
the number of gauges proliferated.
By 1861, over 7,000 miles of track with [a 5-
foot ] gauge had been laid throughout the
South.
The Ohio legislature [chose a] 4-foot-10-inch
gauge. California chose … 5 feet, … Missouri
and Texas chose 6 feet.
By the 1870s, there were over
twenty different gauges in use in
America.”*
* Standardization of American Rail Gauge
“http://railroad.lindahall.org/essays/rails-guage.html”
** A long, arduous march toward standardization.
Smithsonian, March 01, 1985, Nesmith, Achsah
13
19th century technology
“Why wasn’t this problem addressed?”“[T]he first serious efforts to bring
uniformity to rail gauges in 1853 resulted
in bloody riots. … where three different
widths of railroad met, … hundreds of jobs
[had been] created by the need to load
and unload … all the arriving cars in order
to change their wheels.
With so much well-paid work to lose, city
officials refused to grant the railroads the
right to close streets and bridges while the
track-width changes were made, and the
[state] governor … backed them.
Families, and even church
congregations, split … over the issue.
At one point, a mob of women took
sledgehammers and were tearing up
the various tracks until federal
marshals moved in.” * * A long, arduous march toward standardization.
Smithsonian, March 01, 1985, Nesmith, Achsah
14
21st century mobile technology
“What efficiencies are possible? A logistics
scenario…”
Service Providers
ANY Warehouse ANY Transportation
Standard
Format
Standard
Format
Buyer & Seller
Systems
Value Point #2:
Single interface and
standard data format.
Confirm current details,
avoid mistakes. Notify
customer of service.
Value Point #1:
Single interface and
standard data format.
Confirm current details,
avoid mistakes. Notify
customer of service.
Value Point #4:
Industry standard
message. Single
delivery endpoint.
Value Point #3:
Industry standard
barcode and data
format. Universal
‘readability’.
Standard
Format
Value Point #5: Standard,
non-proprietary, message
collection and distribution
architecture. Near real-
time data collection.
15
21st century mobile technology
“What enhaced efficiencies are possible?”
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Logistics
Surveys
Inspections
EquipmentServicing
Permitting
Consulting
Application
???
We don’t need MORE intermediaries in these data flows, we need fewer.
Adherence to Standards is the price we pay for this inter-operability.
Standards are being aligned across entire industries everyday.
(Telephones anyone?)
17
?
21st century mobile technology “What are the enablers for this scenario? Methods, not Things.”
19th century technology “How then did ‘just as wide’ come to be?”The fact that Mr. Tarbutton’s railroad
was “just as wide” as the Pennsylvania
came about by an incredible event of
mass standardization.
“During two spring days in 1886, the
rails were moved on more than 11,000
miles of track … from Virginia to Florida
to Texas.
When the great shift was over, trains
could travel from the South to the North
or the West without … [the] changing of
wheels at connecting points that had
gone on before.
By Wednesday morning, June 2, 1886,
the South's rails at last matched the
gauge used by the mighty
Pennsylvania.”*, and Mr. Tarbutton
could make his statement. ** A long, arduous march toward standardization.
Smithsonian, March 01, 1985, Nesmith, Achsah
18
The 19th century technology lesson?
• Or, the lessons of “just as wide”…
• Think & plan beyond current boundaries. Don’t let
the long-term interconnection opportunity be
obscured by the short-term appeal of the
technology.
• Entrenched interests can impede progress. The
longer the delay, the greater the cost & effort
involved in standardization.
• In innovation, oftentimes the “methods”
ultimately prove more important to empowerment
than the “things”.
19
How to empower 21st century technology?
• Embrace standardization for the value it brings to the
entire chain, not just to your company.
• This is not altruism, its just a good, long-term, business
strategy.
• Insist that application vendors support industry standards.
• Solution providers need to realize that the value isn’t
generated by an oxymoronic attempt to implement
proprietary “methods” (‘standards’), but rather from the
innovation of “things”, enabled by those standards.
20
How to empower 21st century technology?
•Make all our industry information
conduits “just as wide” by
supporting standardization.
•Learn the lessons of the past…
21
Just as wide?
22Empowering 21st century technology,
with a 19th century technology lesson.
Thank you!