A Short Story for Engineers • Hacker News Board

Re: A Short Story for Engineers

#21

Post by setr » Sat, Sep 26, 2020, 7:02 PM UTC

Nextgrid wrote: post #13

Finnucane wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s certainly hard to imagine any real system being designed to stop the production line instead of just diverting the empties into a bin.

I think stopping the line would be the correct thing to do as having an empty box is a thing that should never happen (of course, the upstream issue should be fixed first) and if it does happen chances are something is very wrong and it's better to be safe than sorry.

in the story, they've accepted the empty box as a fact of life -- fixing the upstream problem was not cost-viable.

So this is a scenario where empty boxes are known & expected, but they stop the line anyways

Re: A Short Story for Engineers

#22

Post by StavrosK » Sat, Sep 26, 2020, 7:03 PM UTC

hkeide wrote: post #3

Every time I hear this story the alleged budget increases

No it doesn't, it's always been $9M (or, at least, 10M was how I've always heard it). What did you hear that was more than $11M?

Re: A Short Story for Engineers

#23

Post by mcculley » Sat, Sep 26, 2020, 7:03 PM UTC

hkeide wrote: post #3

Every time I hear this story the alleged budget increases

When replicating a meme, change something. That way you can track how your version propagates.

Re: A Short Story for Engineers

#24

Post by adrianmonk » Sat, Sep 26, 2020, 7:05 PM UTC

hkeide wrote: post #3

Every time I hear this story the alleged budget increases

I used to work at a company that also does "material handling" (fancy way of saying "conveyor belts, etc.") for factory automation.

I wasn't in that department, but I got a general sense of the budgets, and $8 million sounds orders of magnitude too high for a project like this.

Re: A Short Story for Engineers

#25

Post by vidanay » Sat, Sep 26, 2020, 7:05 PM UTC

Nextgrid wrote: post #13

Finnucane wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s certainly hard to imagine any real system being designed to stop the production line instead of just diverting the empties into a bin.

I think stopping the line would be the correct thing to do as having an empty box is a thing that should never happen (of course, the upstream issue should be fixed first) and if it does happen chances are something is very wrong and it's better to be safe than sorry.

Stopping the production line is almost never the first choice. Continuous production takes priority. There are second-order metrics that can be applied on top of the individual rejects (N in a row, N out of M rate, etc) and THOSE metrics can be used to determine if production should be shut down.

Source: Have worked in industrial process control (specifically automated QA inspection equipment) for 20 years.

Re: A Short Story for Engineers

#26

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Sep 26, 2020, 7:06 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: A Short Story for Engineers

#27

Post by kllrnohj » Sat, Sep 26, 2020, 7:06 PM UTC

raldi wrote: post #11

Of course it’s a parable. That doesn’t make it any less pithy. See also: The Russians Used a Pencil

> See also: The Russians Used a Pencil

Although that one is highly incorrect. Nasa did use pencils, Nasa didn't pay for the space pen's development, and the space pen is superior to the pencil (no flammable particles), and Russians also use the space pen and not pencils as a result.

It trivializes actual improvements and glorifies dangerous shortcuts over actual engineering. It contributes to the "haha scientists are dumb" mentality that's plaguing modern politics.

Re: A Short Story for Engineers

#28

Post by NiceWayToDoIT » Sat, Sep 26, 2020, 7:07 PM UTC

I love it, as soon as I read first part, I started over engineering solution. And at the end I was wow, so simple ... someone told me long time ago truly genius things are simple.

Re: A Short Story for Engineers

#29

Post by hn_throwaway_99 » Sat, Sep 26, 2020, 7:07 PM UTC

Yes, the story is an urban legend, the budget goes up every time it's told, etc. But I think the important lesson here is not really "line worker outsmarts expensive consultants", its really about incentives. The consultants are incentivized to do good work (they want to keep a good reputation and potentially get more work) BUT they are also incentivized to charge as much as possible ("value-based pricing" is the term the industry loves) which means they will often try to convince you your problem is more complicated than it actually is

Similarly, the line worker is likely (correctly) to believe he won't be paid much more if he works harder, so his primary incentive is to just reduce his overall workload as much as possible and still get paid.

The best solution (and I believe a bunch of research backs this up) is to better incentivize your line workers and reward them appropriately. I know one study in particular that showed broad-based stock option ownership among employees was correlated with stronger company results, while options concentrated just among senior execs was not correlated with business success.

Re: A Short Story for Engineers

#30

Post by solarkraft » Sat, Sep 26, 2020, 7:08 PM UTC

newyankee wrote: post #14

raldi wrote: post #11

Of course it’s a parable. That doesn’t make it any less pithy. See also: The Russians Used a Pencil

They literally used it in a Blockbuster Hindi movie called '3 idiots' as if it was a real story. A huge section of the population takes these urban legends seriously. But i guess as long as the message is decent , no harm done ?

> But i guess as long as the message is decent, no harm done?

I'm not sure the message is decent and no harm is done, since it seems to be designed to weaken trust in complicated engineering processes with its underlying "look at these idiots".