Under Development from Issue 249 of Computer Shopper Magazine
Ring ring. Ring ring. “Hello”
“Hi. Yeah. It’s you” says the caller with great insight.
“Erm, yes”. It’s Jason, a long term customer with whom I’ve been exchanging “I’m out” voicemail messages for the past week. Finally we’re both on opposite ends of a live telephone call. This should be fun – conversations with Jason always are.
“What it is is, right, is we were thinking, right ? Sales. With me ?”
“What about sales Jason ?”
“Hang on. I’ll start again. Like a web site. Yeah ?”
“Um ? You’ve got a web site”
“Well it’s not me. It’s Deborah. And she was saying, sort of, like a touch screen. Yeah ?”
“For sales ?”
“Yeah – you got it.” I indicate that the one thing I have not got is “it”.
“Well, bar codes”
“On a web site ?”
“No – on boxes of course !”
“What ???? I think I’d better come & see you Jason”
“Yeah. Think so. Right. Yeah.”
You’d get the impression from the above conversation that Jason’s thick as a brick and can’t do joined up thinking. You’d be wrong. It’s just that his mouth works at a different speed from his brain and the end result is a language that sounds like English but not as most of us know it. It’s probably easier to get the meaning in Howard Chace’s stories (see last month) than understand Jason. Yet there’s an up market Porsche sitting in his car park so either the tooth fairy has been ultra kind to him or he’s a lot brainier than he sounds.
Deborah is Jason’s cousin and she looks after sales & marketing. The company’s product range is very complex and contains a lot of items that are a variation on a theme. Think of products like shoes where you get a base style which comes in a range of sizes plus different colours and you’re on the right lines – except there are more variables. Deborah would like to speed up the entry of customer orders – particularly the process where you choose the product code. She’s been doing some online shopping and it’s given her some ideas.
“Look at this” she says “What do you think ?” On the screen is a scantily clad, generously proportioned lady who was clearly ahead of “the bouncing Czech” (see last month) in the queue. Well ahead. The web site on screen is www.bravissimo.com which, for the uninitiated, sells undergarments for ladies who need above average levels of support. This is one of those rare occasions where I’m lost for words and can merely manage an “Um”
Ordering an item works through a layered filter process where you gradually add more detail starting with product type, then selecting style, colour, brand etc until you’ve eliminated all the choices and arrived at a single product. You then get a table of all the size choices which you then select from to make your order. It looks very flashy but then I imagine that Bravissimo probably spend more than a few bob on site development so it should. The problem I can see is that Jason’s product range is so eclectic that entering an order with a mix of product types might take longer using the “web site” method as you navigate between the different kinds of goods that could be sold. Also there could be a problem with the “size” table which could easily get too wide for the
“Hi. Yeah. It’s you” says the caller with great insight.
“Erm, yes”. It’s Jason, a long term customer with whom I’ve been exchanging “I’m out” voicemail messages for the past week. Finally we’re both on opposite ends of a live telephone call. This should be fun – conversations with Jason always are.
“What it is is, right, is we were thinking, right ? Sales. With me ?”
“What about sales Jason ?”
“Hang on. I’ll start again. Like a web site. Yeah ?”
“Um ? You’ve got a web site”
“Well it’s not me. It’s Deborah. And she was saying, sort of, like a touch screen. Yeah ?”
“For sales ?”
“Yeah – you got it.” I indicate that the one thing I have not got is “it”.
“Well, bar codes”
“On a web site ?”
“No – on boxes of course !”
“What ???? I think I’d better come & see you Jason”
“Yeah. Think so. Right. Yeah.”
You’d get the impression from the above conversation that Jason’s thick as a brick and can’t do joined up thinking. You’d be wrong. It’s just that his mouth works at a different speed from his brain and the end result is a language that sounds like English but not as most of us know it. It’s probably easier to get the meaning in Howard Chace’s stories (see last month) than understand Jason. Yet there’s an up market Porsche sitting in his car park so either the tooth fairy has been ultra kind to him or he’s a lot brainier than he sounds.
Deborah is Jason’s cousin and she looks after sales & marketing. The company’s product range is very complex and contains a lot of items that are a variation on a theme. Think of products like shoes where you get a base style which comes in a range of sizes plus different colours and you’re on the right lines – except there are more variables. Deborah would like to speed up the entry of customer orders – particularly the process where you choose the product code. She’s been doing some online shopping and it’s given her some ideas.
“Look at this” she says “What do you think ?” On the screen is a scantily clad, generously proportioned lady who was clearly ahead of “the bouncing Czech” (see last month) in the queue. Well ahead. The web site on screen is www.bravissimo.com which, for the uninitiated, sells undergarments for ladies who need above average levels of support. This is one of those rare occasions where I’m lost for words and can merely manage an “Um”
Ordering an item works through a layered filter process where you gradually add more detail starting with product type, then selecting style, colour, brand etc until you’ve eliminated all the choices and arrived at a single product. You then get a table of all the size choices which you then select from to make your order. It looks very flashy but then I imagine that Bravissimo probably spend more than a few bob on site development so it should. The problem I can see is that Jason’s product range is so eclectic that entering an order with a mix of product types might take longer using the “web site” method as you navigate between the different kinds of goods that could be sold. Also there could be a problem with the “size” table which could easily get too wide for the
screen. What would you do then ? I’m also concerned about the maintenance cost of adding new product variations. Distracted by the demonstration I’m disinclined to make a decision right there & promise to think about it. Cop out !
“Where do bar codes fit into this then ?” I ask
“They don’t – that’s something else”. There’s nothing like a clear task briefing – and this is nothing like one. Jason looks at me as though I’m an idiot.
Currently Jason’s product packaging is not bar coded. And a few of his larger customers are asking for product codes on the boxes. Well, insisting would be closer to the mark. You might think that the answer would be simple – just have the carton manufacturer print product bar codes on the boxes. What’s hard about that ? Well what’s hard is there are about twenty styles of carton that can be used to package hundreds of products. What they do is overprint part of the surface that’s left blank with the product name, size, specification, colour etc. And the printing process is OK for words but can’t do bar codes.
I explain to Jason that we can tweak his software so that it will produce labels in bulk using a thermal transfer process and that the label could have all the product details on it including the specification and a bar code representing the product code. An industrial strength printer can make 3000 labels an hour. No problem there then. What is going to be a problem is getting the labels onto the cartons. So what’s so difficult about peeling a label off the backing & sticking it on a box ? Nothing at all unless you need to do it ten thousand times a day ! Try it yourself and see how many you could do in a minute. Accurately placed so it doesn’t look a mess. Then work out the labour cost of applying the labels. It’s a lot of money.
And Jason’s off on holiday, and the customer wants bar coded product soon – so I offer to work out a solution. A web search supplies a short list of companies that do machines for sticking things like mailing labels on envelopes and I arrange a series of demonstrations so we can try these out with sample labels on different kinds of flat cartons (ie before they’re assembled into boxes). One machine looks particularly promising and makes light work of a carton style that’s used for 40% or the production volume. The machine can do up to 5000 an hour and there are cartons zooming out of the end of it like the flying playing cards in Alice in Wonderland. So far so good.
But there’s another type of carton called a “crash lock” – with this type you assemble it by pushing opposite sides and the bottom flaps fall into place all by themselves. When flat these flaps are inside the carton not outside like on a “normal” box. Why does that matter ? Because one end of the flat carton is twice as thick as the other end so setting the machine feed rollers at the right height for the thin end means the thick end is too thick to go through. And vice versa. Arghhhhhh. Also problematic is that with the asymmetric thickness a stack of fifty or more tends to fall over ‘coz the leading edges are much lower than the cumulative height of the back ones. If we can solve those two problems we’re home & dry.
The machine sales guy promises to talk to his development engineers and get back to me.
Later that week I get a call from Deborah with whom I’ve had little previous interaction – I assume she’s progress chasing while Jason’s away. “Hi. Yeah. What it is, yeah, right, is Mars Bars. Right ?” Now I’m trying to work out whether this is genetic or environmental. Right ?
…………….to be continued
“Where do bar codes fit into this then ?” I ask
“They don’t – that’s something else”. There’s nothing like a clear task briefing – and this is nothing like one. Jason looks at me as though I’m an idiot.
Currently Jason’s product packaging is not bar coded. And a few of his larger customers are asking for product codes on the boxes. Well, insisting would be closer to the mark. You might think that the answer would be simple – just have the carton manufacturer print product bar codes on the boxes. What’s hard about that ? Well what’s hard is there are about twenty styles of carton that can be used to package hundreds of products. What they do is overprint part of the surface that’s left blank with the product name, size, specification, colour etc. And the printing process is OK for words but can’t do bar codes.
I explain to Jason that we can tweak his software so that it will produce labels in bulk using a thermal transfer process and that the label could have all the product details on it including the specification and a bar code representing the product code. An industrial strength printer can make 3000 labels an hour. No problem there then. What is going to be a problem is getting the labels onto the cartons. So what’s so difficult about peeling a label off the backing & sticking it on a box ? Nothing at all unless you need to do it ten thousand times a day ! Try it yourself and see how many you could do in a minute. Accurately placed so it doesn’t look a mess. Then work out the labour cost of applying the labels. It’s a lot of money.
And Jason’s off on holiday, and the customer wants bar coded product soon – so I offer to work out a solution. A web search supplies a short list of companies that do machines for sticking things like mailing labels on envelopes and I arrange a series of demonstrations so we can try these out with sample labels on different kinds of flat cartons (ie before they’re assembled into boxes). One machine looks particularly promising and makes light work of a carton style that’s used for 40% or the production volume. The machine can do up to 5000 an hour and there are cartons zooming out of the end of it like the flying playing cards in Alice in Wonderland. So far so good.
But there’s another type of carton called a “crash lock” – with this type you assemble it by pushing opposite sides and the bottom flaps fall into place all by themselves. When flat these flaps are inside the carton not outside like on a “normal” box. Why does that matter ? Because one end of the flat carton is twice as thick as the other end so setting the machine feed rollers at the right height for the thin end means the thick end is too thick to go through. And vice versa. Arghhhhhh. Also problematic is that with the asymmetric thickness a stack of fifty or more tends to fall over ‘coz the leading edges are much lower than the cumulative height of the back ones. If we can solve those two problems we’re home & dry.
The machine sales guy promises to talk to his development engineers and get back to me.
Later that week I get a call from Deborah with whom I’ve had little previous interaction – I assume she’s progress chasing while Jason’s away. “Hi. Yeah. What it is, yeah, right, is Mars Bars. Right ?” Now I’m trying to work out whether this is genetic or environmental. Right ?
…………….to be continued