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My Almost-daily Journal |
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| About I love trying out new things, especially when it comes to internet technology. I never really kept a journal, but it's something that I've always wanted to do. Now, everybody will get a chance to look inside my twisted, and somewhat-warped mind.
I've also subscribed to Audio Blog, so a few times a week, I'll leave actual voice blogs. Very cool!XML Newsfeed Previous Posts
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Tuesday, June 10, 2003
The Booked Summer Why does it seem that life is in slow-motion during the winter, then in the summer everything runs at double- and triple-time? How many free summer weekends do we actually have in a lifetime? Figure that there's ten summer weekends per year, and 40 years to truly enjoy them, and that leaves 400 actual weekends. Cut that in half by two, due to weather, and we really only have about 200 available weekends in our lifetimes. Pretty sad, since the last two weekends devoured 1% of my available bank. Oh well. I don't know how the heck we're going to plan a wedding. Boo hoo. Decoma SVE Grief The same pattern seems to follow the automotive industry: work life seems to slow down a little, then when summer approaches, everybody needs something yesterday. Since my move to the main building, my workload has tripled. Long gone are the lackadaisical and laissez-faire days of working in a development center. Working in a development center is the epitome of a permanent vacation: no deadlines, no unappreciative customers, no politics, and no back-stabbing. Everybody you work with is genuine and sincere. Sure, we did have some deadlines to meet, but they were deadlines setup by us. Now, since I'm on the production side, deadlines are the difference between automotive life and death. When OEM assembly plants are launching a vehicle, nothing else matters. The OEM's are the final word. If there's an issue, it's the supplier's fault, they're paying for it, and they gotta like it. If pricing doesn't meet their "perceived" target, the piece-price goes down, even if it means that the supplier doesn't make a dime. It's a dog-eat-dog world, where covering your ass is the only way to survive. I remember now why I left the production environment. It truly sucks. I not only have two programs that are totally in the shitter, I'm also transitioning into an IT Operations Manager role where I'll be responsible for all aspects of IT for all of SVE's assembly and manufacturing plants. In automotive manufacturing, IT Operations does not comprise of just email and networking. It's scary. Add all the normal IT responsibilities: networking, computers, servers, backups, email, internet, intranet, extranet, security, VPN, CAD, FEA, etc., as well as all the archaic, behind-the-scenes releasing aspects of running a manufacturing/assembly plant. The automotive industry is a weird animal. Purchasing, payments, releases, orders, forecasts, shipping, receiving, part numbers, engineering changes, etc., all operate on OLD archaic databases running off of mainframes. One of the largest databases in the world is Ford's WERS system, which is their engineering, part numbers and release system. It's run by mainframes. In the good ol' days, once would access them with dummy terminals. You think the automotive industry would upgrade their databases? Shit! Their only upgrade is creating Windows-based emulators (your computer acts as a dummy terminal) such as Rumba to access the databases. And just recently, they're creating web-based "wrappers" to access the info through the web. As far as technology goes, the automotive industry is still operating as if it were in the 1960's... perhaps the 1970's. Why does this bother me? Why wouldn't it? I love the exploitation of technology Shit! I can have my house wired with three real-time cameras, as well as network my house to allow for web-based access to appliances and lights, yet the automotive industry can't upgrade their mainframes from 1970. They're like a 55-gallon drum, half-full of water, trying to be pushed uphill, on ice. The industry is just too big. So, as the IT Operations Manager, I'm going to have to implement technologies to talk to these archaic systems. It's the only way that plants get paid. It's their bread and butter. If these systems go down, entire OEM assembly plants can shut down, which can cost suppliers tens of thousands of dollars per minute. Why would assembly plants shut down? Because most components ordered by the OEM's for their assembly plants are based off of Just-In-Time (JIT) inventory. This means that plants place orders for their components with a four-hour lead time for the parts to get to the plant. It reduces inventory at the OEM's assembly plant, as well as inventory at the supplier. It makes business-sense, since holding inventory costs money. The only problem is that your plant can never shut down, ever. Redundant power, redundant internet connectivity, redundant everything. Anyway, that's going to be my life for the next few years. I'll be supporting all of Decoma SVE's assembly and manufacturing plants with all aspects of IT Operations. It a job and responsibility that I'd rather not have. I didn't even ask for this. I think somebody told the VP that I was a computer expert, just because I knew how to create a PowerPoint presentation. I miss the development center. posted by Dino at 6:15 PM (permanent link) |