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Industrial Engineer, Feb 2008

RANTS AND RAVES

Power in threes

I am an IE undergraduate at Arizona State University. I will be finishing my degree in May 2008 and am currently working as a simulation consultant in the health care industry. I just wanted to comment on the excellent article "Prestigious Three" (December). The bullet points stated throughout the article were very informative. The marrying of the three concepts is very new and innovative in the health care industry. Together the "prestigious three" will help to develop patient care, and ensure financial feasibility for health care institutions.

Again, thank you for the knowledge capital presented in the article.

Jeff Taft

Phoenix, Ariz.

Featured fluff?

As a consultant, having performed a significant amount of work in the alcoholic beverage distribution business, I was excited to see the cover of my November issue of IE. However after reading the feature article, "A Taste for Perfection," I must say I was totally disappointed. My expectation was to learn how someone else solved the challenges presented in distributing alcoholic beverages to a large demanding customer base in a specific geographic area, compare that to my own experience, and learn a lesson or two going forward. Instead, I got a cover article, that in my opinion, was all fluff. There was no data presented to describe the challenge or the solution.

All I got for data was the following: they went from a 25-foot-high warehouse to a no-foot-tall facility and it will have the capacity for 10,000 pallets by 2010; how many visitors they expected for the 2 002 Winter Olympics; how many beer jobs there are in Utah; how many employees in the warehouse before the new system was installed; and how many warehouse installations have been performed by the selected vendor.

What I expected in an article like this in an engineering magazine would have been data to answer some of the following questions: How many cases per day did they distribute (broken down by beer, wine, and liquor)? How many orders per day were processed and delivered? How many employees did they end up with at the distribution center with the new system? What was the cost of the new warehouse project? How many pallet positions did the new high-rise warehouse have to start with? How many aisles in the storage system and how many automated cranes? What type of system do they use to pick orders (the most critical function in any alcoholic beverage distribution center)?

This is an engineering magazine. Engineers want to understand the application, the challenge, and the selected solution. None of that was provided in this article. I didn't learn how this DC "swallows old processes." Certainly you can do better, and I have come to expect better from IE magazine in future editions.

Brian F. Rattigan

Newton, Mass.

Information management

After reading "Simplification Effects Not So Simple" (November), my first reaction as a management engineer was to freak out and consider burning this article as quickly as possible so my hospital administrators would not see it. As someone who works mainly in monitoring labor productivity and simplification of processes, this study seemed initially discouraging.

However, my priorities of helping employees provide excellent patient care, coupled with responsible financial performance, are not damaged by this study. It does shed light on how one should go about redesigning a process and developing a solid network for communication. Thanks for the thought-provoking article.

Brian Dudis

Gibsonville, N.C.

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