IBM Storage: How Common Sense became the Lifeblood of Productivity

#IBMPartner

In 1983, I had just finished my study and found myself employed as a developer at an electrical cable and conductor company. Since I was in charge of the entire information system, I had to work alongside my manager to determine the best way to increase productivity and improve the organization.

While touring the warehouse, I surveyed the gigantic skeins of electrical cables that were scattered throughout the shed and loosely sorted by size and product family. Each time a customer placed an order, the workers had to hand-sort and collect the materials. Taking note of their storage processes, I designed an algorithm that reorganized the bundles of cables — not by size and family but by the frequency of withdrawal. In this way, I moved a narrow list of products to accessible locations, allowing workers to pick up the most frequently sold products quickly and with ease. After a few months, my boss saw a significant increase in warehouse performance and a major reduction in our shippers’ wait times.

This experience taught me to focus my efforts on the simple things that can have a major impact on daily processes; those little things add up quickly.

Now, more than 30 years later, as I sit here researching IBM’s architecture I can appreciate the extent to which our technological progress is tied to traditional (and rather conservative) practices. Without fail, they manage to yield positive results, even against the…