A Parable • Hacker News Board

Re: A Parable

#11

Post by Tichy » Wed, Jan 30, 2013, 3:26 PM UTC

jules wrote: post #4

I guess I am a true mathematician.

Me too. It's obvious that the two permanently coupled cars are really just one big car with a toilet, and it's obvious from the start that they should just have put a toilet in every car. But that's too easy to be the point, I suppose?

Maybe it is a parable against yet another workaround?

Re: A Parable

#12

Post by xenophonf » Wed, Jan 30, 2013, 3:44 PM UTC

I'm in IT ops, and I will bet you dollars to donuts that the money saved by putting toilets in every other car was more than wasted by the shunting yard switching cars every which way.

Re: A Parable

#13

Post by xenophonf » Wed, Jan 30, 2013, 3:46 PM UTC

xenophonf wrote: post #12

I'm in IT ops, and I will bet you dollars to donuts that the money saved by putting toilets in every other car was more than wasted by the shunting yard switching cars every which way.

And that's ignoring the repeated customer service issues, which more than likely drove business to this railroad's customers.

Re: A Parable

#14

Post by brianbreslin » Wed, Jan 30, 2013, 3:50 PM UTC

F_J_H wrote: post #6

sidcool wrote: post #3

I failed to understand the solution :(

Two cars were coupled together correctly (i.e. car with toilet coupled on toilet end to a car without a toilet), and then never decoupled. Each two car couple was then treated as a single unit.

how do they solve the issue of the turntables being big enough for only one car at a time?

Re: A Parable

#15

Post by onemorepassword » Wed, Jan 30, 2013, 3:51 PM UTC

Ironically, this kind of "cost-savings" is exactly what the Netherlands railways have been doing over the years (only by closing half the existing toilets). However, they ended up with the ultimate solution: ordering new trains without any toilets.

No joke, they even came up with the brilliant idea of handing out plastic bags for "emergencies"...

Re: A Parable

#16

Post by mav3r1ck » Wed, Jan 30, 2013, 3:54 PM UTC

digitalengineer wrote: post #5

Wouldn't it be cheaper to just install the bloody toilets in every train car? Than every car could be everywhere. After all it's just a toilet with a hole.

Same problem as with airlines-- a toilet would probably remove 4-6 paying passenger seats, which means less money. Toilets don't generate revenue whereas seats keep paying for themselves many times over.

Re: A Parable

#17

Post by gsg » Wed, Jan 30, 2013, 3:54 PM UTC

xenophonf wrote: post #12

I'm in IT ops, and I will bet you dollars to donuts that the money saved by putting toilets in every other car was more than wasted by the shunting yard switching cars every which way.

Yes, and I think that's why I like this parable so much. The contrast between the elegance of the solution and the futility of the enterprise as a whole is striking.

Re: A Parable

#18

Post by BCM43 » Wed, Jan 30, 2013, 3:58 PM UTC

digitalengineer wrote: post #5

Wouldn't it be cheaper to just install the bloody toilets in every train car? Than every car could be everywhere. After all it's just a toilet with a hole.

I think there is more to train toilets than that. You need somewhere for the wast to go, and waste disposal, cleaning, maintenance, stocking all have to be done on a regular basis.

Re: A Parable

#19

Post by andmarios » Wed, Jan 30, 2013, 4:00 PM UTC

To me the point of the parable (apart from clever programming) seems to be that for a successful venture you need to have competent people on all fronts, managers and engineers, good communication between teams and listen to your clients.

The manager did a good job to find a way to cut down the costs but didn't get the specifications right so the engineers, although they could deal with the issue, didn't even know that an issue existed.

I guess in the day, they didn't have UX designers.

As for the article's point, it probably is nor managers, nor engineers, nor mathematicians really get the point of the parable.

Re: A Parable

#20

Post by larrydag » Wed, Jan 30, 2013, 4:07 PM UTC

andmarios wrote: post #19

To me the point of the parable (apart from clever programming) seems to be that for a successful venture you need to have competent people on all fronts, managers and engineers, good communication between teams and listen to your clients. The manager did a good job to find a way to cut down the costs but didn't get the specifications right so the engineers, although they could deal with the issue, didn't even know th…

In these sort of parables I tend to agree with W Edwards Deming in that the root of most problems is the managers. The goal should be to reduce variability in the process. Not being able to see any data I would guess that most of the variability in the data would be with the shunting.