In LO19653 Steve Randall quotes:
>According to McKenna, 'Faster is no longer
>enough. The search for the instantaneous and simultaneous has become the
>1990s equivalent of the quest for the Holy Grail.' (p. 1)
I suggest that interested people go back to the System Dynamics "Holy
Grail" (namely Jay Forrester's book, Industrial Dynamics) and read what
Dr. Forrester shows about making information available sooner. It is in
Appendix J: Value of Information, p.428.
Forrester writes:
"It is sometimes assumed that the problems of production planning
would disappear if full knowledge were available about the behavior of
retail sales."
He then tests this assumption with his production-distribution system
model and discovers that the improvement is much less than one would
expect. For example, without implementing "instant" knowledge of retail
sales the fluctuation in manufacturing orders is about eight times as
great as the fluctuation in retail sales; with the improvement this only
improves to about five times as great.
He concludes:
"A detailed study of such a system might lead to the conclusion
that the solution to better system behavior lies not in more information
at the factory but rather in a change in the operating policies of the
distribution system."
--"John W. Gunkler" <jgunkler@sprintmail.com>
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