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A Short Story for Engineers

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Re: A Short Story for Engineers

#81

Post by srtjstjsj »

ghaff wrote: post #79
jakub_g wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This blog post touches on the topic (highly recommended read): https://blog.erratasec.com/2020/07/how-ceos-think.html > Outside consultants often end up saying the same thing you do, but are trusted whereas you are not. CEOs listen to the outsiders because they have no hidden political agenda.

The one time in my career that I worked with management consultants, I wasn't all that impressed. The partner and one of the associates were sharp enough. The other associate was not. That said, they created a big fancy spreadsheet that kept the business planning people happy and basically validated what we had been telling senior management. I'm not sure that's bad though. Having been, at a later time, an IT industr…

2/3 of staff being competent is a great batting average for a business.

3rd party validation of a biased party's proposal is a valuable product.

Less good is when the "validation" is just for show, like hiring Ivy League grad consulting just because of the aura of the name.

Re: A Short Story for Engineers

#82

Post by srtjstjsj »

Hello71 wrote: post #56
shard wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this age of the internet, memes get translated pretty quickly. I'm curious whether you found some definitive source that tracked this meme to its origin in a Chinese story.

for what it's worth, I don't think they claimed that it originated in Chinese, merely that it was translated from Chinese at some point. it's possible that it originated not in Chinese, was translated to Chinese at some point, then translated back into English.

The claim that is was translated from Chinese was invented in this very thread from someone who happened to see a Chinese version.

Re: A Short Story for Engineers

#83

Post by srtjstjsj »

raldi wrote: post #20
LeoPanthera wrote: post #10

Obviously an urban legend, and one of a series of legends in which a menial worker comes up with a simple solution to an apparently complex problem. Snopes has details on some of the others: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/blue-collar-innovation/

The one about the expense of adding another elevator reminds me of a similar story where they just install mirrors on every floor and then the complaints about slow elevators stop.

Or wait for smartphones to be invented.

Re: A Short Story for Engineers

#84

Post by srtjstjsj »

koonsolo wrote: post #75

These are the stories that non-engineers like to tell themselves to feel smarter. Especially managers like to think they have more common sense than engineers. But reality is that engineers are the ones who know most about the subject, they know the details how everything interacts with each other. I had meetings with managers that thought their common sense could help me, only ending up me explaining the most basic…

You certainly sound like the sort of person who is chronically surrounded by a surprisingly large number of idiots.

Re: A Short Story for Engineers

#85

Post by scottmckenzie »

A lot of people of viewing this as a positive story. I’m not sure I do.

Empty boxes are still making their way to the end of the process where a hack is being used to fix the outcome.

The problem of the empty boxes still exists. In fact, it could be many problems down the line.

I saw an interesting comparison of mechanics vs engineers where (no intended slight to mechanics) mechanics will fix the behaviour but engineers will perform Root Cause Analysis.

While I agree that the expensive consultants don’t provide much value, and the solution fix is affordable and nicely and lateral, I don’t think this is what you’re really want.

I draw comparisons to the endeavours that Tesla is making to more efficient manufacturing lines.

Re: A Short Story for Engineers

#86

Post by qznc »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #29

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 te…

Where can i find that study about stock options?

Re: A Short Story for Engineers

#87

Post by srtjstjsj »

Finnucane wrote: post #31
Nextgrid wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But there will always be some empty boxes no matter how tightly you calibrate the line. You're never going to have perfect tolerances in a mass production line like that. In fact, in this case, the scale is still a better solution than the blower, because not only do you need to not send out empties, but also incorrectly filled tubes.

And unsurprisingly, in real companies where this matters, they use scales. The urban legend, like many, proves the opposite of the truly good lesson.

Re: A Short Story for Engineers

#90

Post by Aperocky »

shard wrote: post #43
Aperocky wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just made up, the story is almost a word for word translation of a story that's been circulating for years in Chinese. Of course people have called bullshit on it before. If you can read Chinese, you can check the thorough debunking of this myth right here, from someone that actually works in a soap factory: https://www.zhihu.com/question/27132006 And that was from 2014.

In this age of the internet, memes get translated pretty quickly. I'm curious whether you found some definitive source that tracked this meme to its origin in a Chinese story.

> a story that's been circulating for years in Chinese

I don't think I claimed that.

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