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Formula 1 chief appalled to find team using Excel to manage 20k car parts

arstechnica.com

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Re: Formula 1 chief appalled to find team using Excel to manage 20k car parts

#11

Post by jlawer »

Rinzler89 wrote: post #2

I'm surprised this is reaching mainstream news now. It was known for a long time, before Vowles joined Williams, that it was in the shit, underfunded and that they were using Excel files sent via email attachments, instead of a proper ERP system. It's not surprising this happens actually, when as a F1 team principal, your goal and job security is tied to scoring points at this year's season, not setting up a multi-ye…

My understanding is that they were tracking significantly fewer parts in Excel as many of what they are now tracking as separate parts were previously tracked as a single part (kind of an assembly). I think they were previously tracking somewhere in the 100-200 parts in Excel.

My understanding for why this is coming out now is that there was a talk Vowles has done recently where he mentioned the massive hit getting ready for this season because they changed both Excel into the new ERP systems AND started tracking each individual part, which complicated the transition and why it was such a rush for Williams to be ready for this year.

Re: Formula 1 chief appalled to find team using Excel to manage 20k car parts

#12

Post by defrost »

bonki wrote: post #9
nunez wrote: post #7

At least they weren't using Access.

I've been wondering for 25 years if there has ever been a legitimate use case for this abomination.

Trojan gift horse for undermining the competition .. once they're hip deep and headed deeper into Access dependancy you're free to play the field without concern of them catching up.

Re: Formula 1 chief appalled to find team using Excel to manage 20k car parts

#15

Post by euroderf »

karmakaze wrote: post #10
presentation wrote: post #3

Can’t wait to see their reaction when they realize just how much of society and commerce is also managed by giant Excel sheets.

The worst I saw was a network hardware and service provider maintaining all their products and services in Excel spreadsheets per contract. Each of those had all the relevant information, the list of products, when they were due for renewal, service, or replacement, and the agreed-upon rates. I was there to get them off that system doing ETL to Oracle, which was only the first part of getting it to SAP. It was intere…

Oracle?

From frying pan to fire.

Re: Formula 1 chief appalled to find team using Excel to manage 20k car parts

#18

Post by Clubber »

nunez wrote: post #7

At least they weren't using Access.

Access is great for small companies if it's schema'd properly. The problem is when those small companies outgrow it; it's a complete rewrite. I believe you can point it to a MSSQL backend, but it's been a couple decades since I've used it.

It's certainly a step up from Excel.

Re: Formula 1 chief appalled to find team using Excel to manage 20k car parts

#19

Post by noSyncCloud »

Clubber wrote: post #18
nunez wrote: post #7

At least they weren't using Access.

Access is great for small companies if it's schema'd properly. The problem is when those small companies outgrow it; it's a complete rewrite. I believe you can point it to a MSSQL backend, but it's been a couple decades since I've used it. It's certainly a step up from Excel.

You're not wrong... I used it for some small business things before I started programming. But why does MS have to treat so disrespectfully? Like they didn't even have time to give the SQL editor a monospace font, wtf?

Re: Formula 1 chief appalled to find team using Excel to manage 20k car parts

#20

Post by Clubber »

noSyncCloud wrote: post #19
Clubber wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Access is great for small companies if it's schema'd properly. The problem is when those small companies outgrow it; it's a complete rewrite. I believe you can point it to a MSSQL backend, but it's been a couple decades since I've used it. It's certainly a step up from Excel.

You're not wrong... I used it for some small business things before I started programming. But why does MS have to treat so disrespectfully? Like they didn't even have time to give the SQL editor a monospace font, wtf?

I dunno. They haven't given much love to SSRS in quite a while either.
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