Of Colours and Simplicity
| Pages | 14-15 |
| Date | 01 February 1990 |
| Published date | 01 February 1990 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/EUM0000000001423 |
| Author | Catherine Watt |
| Subject Matter | Economics,Information & knowledge management,Management science & operations |
14 INDUSTRIAL MANAGEMENT & DATA SYSTEMS 90,2
A
case study outlining a garment manu-
facturer's installation of a computer
system.
Of Colours
and
Simplicity
Catherine Watt
This article is about taking a complicated problem and
making it seem simple; about a garment manufacturer
called Nethermere which has installed a computer system;
and about
colour.
Old-fashioned computer systems produce
screenfuls of figures and endless reports. Nethermere's
computer system tells it all in colour pictures.
As a typical garment manufacturer, Nethermere asks the
same sort of questions as its associates in the trade. Has
a contract been started yet; will it be finished on time?
Which parts of
the
production
line
are overloaded and which
parts are slack? How can we overcome bottlenecks in
production? Where are
all
the batches for
a
particular order?
How
long,
on
average,
should it take
a
worker to complete
a process, and therefore how should the job be costed?
Which orders are waiting for raw materials before they can
be started? Where are the straggler batches?
Simple? Any production supervisor should be able to
answer these questions without blinking? ... No. Any
production supervisor will tell you that there are many
orders going through the factory at any one time. Each
of these
will
be broken down into colours and sizes; each
has its
own level
of urgency; each must
go
through maybe
50 different processes before completion, and not
everyone in the factory can master every process. Add
to this the noise of machines whirring in the background
and questions flying at the supervisor from all corners,
it is hardly suprising that the garment industry's major
problem is that of achieving delivery on time.
As with many manufacturers in the trade, Nethermere
began to look for a computer system to improve the
profitability of the company. Several major organisations
supplying specialist systems to the clothing trade were
asked to submit their solutions. However, Nethermere
decided that they were not sufficiently relevant to the real
needs of
clothing
manufacture and the contract
was
finally
awarded to the Computer Information Centre (CiC) of
Hitchin. Nethermere had a longstanding association with
CiC and were interested to hear of
the
revolutionary new
concept CiC wished to develop.
The computer system's designer, David Shirley, is
something of a rebel
in
the computer
world.
Shunning
large
computer company politics and bureaucratic inefficiencies,
he set up his own company in 1969. He explains his
rationale: "Most of the large computer companies set up
teams of hundreds of programmers to produce their
working system. At CiC only two people are involved,
which means that the resulting system remains faithful
to the original concept."
When designing a system, Shirley's first step is to soak
up the atmosphere of his client's working environment.
Two weeks behind a till in a bank, for example, resulted
in a highly efficient banking system. At Nethermere,
Shirley spent time on the factory floor, listening to the
workers and watching work in progress. He realised that
in this noisy, hectic and fast moving environment,
supervisors and managers must be able to see who is
doing what, to what, where
—
now!
David Shirley's studies have resulted in a system which is
revolutionary
to
the computer
industry.
Whilst continual use
of computers laden with screens of figures will produce
answers for the supervisor, Shirley's solution was to use
colour
graphics
to make this information
available
at
a
glance.
Red means the order
is
late.
Yellow
means that it
is in
danger
of becoming
late.
Green says it is in progress and on time.
White shows that materials are not yet
available.
Blue shows
that the materials are ready but that production has not
started. These colours are related to each order: the
customer, the product, the promised delivery date, the
quantity ordered and the quantity completed.
By looking at the screen the supervisor can see that, for
example, the first work station is slack. He can look for
a blue line (where all the materials are ready) and move
it into production. If he sees that an order is white this
will prompt him to check that the materials have been
ordered and will arrive in time to meet the delivery date.
If the background is red, he can call up further details
on the screen and find out why.
The whole system
is
operated
using a
"mouse"; there is no
need to operate a keyboard. Simply point the cursor at an
area where further information
is
required and
click a
button.
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