EMPOWERING 21ST CENTURY TECHNOLOGY,

WITH A 19TH CENTURY TECHNOLOGY LESSON.

Bruce Blitch, CIO, Tessenderlo Kerley Inc.

1

CHANGE

“I put a dollar in one of

those change machines...

Nothing changed.”

- George Carlin

2

CHANGE

“It is not necessary to

change...

Survival is not mandatory.”

- W. Edwards Deming

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EMPOWERING 21ST CENTURY TECHNOLOGY,

WITH A 19TH CENTURY TECHNOLOGY LESSON.

Alternate Title: “Technology change was a problem before the Internet, so now that its cancelled, we’ll still have problems.”

Alternate Title: “Everything I know about inefficiency, I learned from Bees the 19th century railroad industry.”

Alternate Title: “Treating 21st Century Lessions (sic) with 19th

Century Technology.”

Alternate Title: “Randy Beard offered me his Tie, but I don’t wear ‘clip-ons’.”

Bruce Blitch, CIO, Tessenderlo Kerley Inc.

4

“in·no·va·tion”

in·no·va·tion - noun

- The introduction of a

new thing, or method.

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“me·thod”

me·thod - noun

- A particular process

for accomplishing

something, especially

a systematic one.

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19th century technology“The true story of Mr. Ben J. Tarbutton”In the 1890’s a small Georgia town built a

three mile rail-link to a neighboring town’s

main-line railroad.

Mr. Ben J. Tarbutton was named President,

and soon the little railroad was very

successful.

As President, he eagerly wrote the president

of the big Pennsylvania Railroad to exchange

rail passes, a common practice among

railroad officials in that day.

The Northerner refused, noting acidly that the

Pennsylvania had thousands of miles of track

connecting major cities while Mr. Tarbutton’s

track was only three miles long.

‘It is true that my railroad may not be as

long as yours,’ Tarbutton is said to

have replied, …

‘but it, sir, is just as wide.’Nesmith, Achsah. “Long, Arduous March Toward Standardization,” Reprinted

from Smithsonian Magazine with Permission, 1985.

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21st century technology“The innovation of ‘things’.”

Smartphones

In 1946 the world’s first general-purpose electronic computer performed 5,000 instructions per second.

In 1975, the Cray-1 supercomputer performed 800 million instructions per second

Today, the modern smartphone in your pocket could be capable of 2,000 million instructions per second.

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21st century technology“The innovation of ‘things.”

Data Transmission

The 1939 record for Morse code was equivalent to ⅓ of a page per minute.

Today, a 4G network can transfer the equivalent of over 360,000 pages per second.

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21st century mobile technology“The innovation of things.”

High Density Barcodes

There is no historic

equivalent to the modern

barcode, except the

written page.

Modern barcodes can

encode many hundreds

of characters in the

space of a large postage

stamp.

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21st century mobile technology“Where is the innovation for Agriculture?”

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Apple iPhone

iTunes Store

Category Count

Agriculture Utilities 66

Farm Games +/- 750

Story

21st century technology“Where is the innovation, period?”“Why Aren't Smartphones Making Us More Productive?”

“Even as an estimated 130 million smartphones roam the U.S. streets, economists can't quite find them.”

“Classically defined, an increase in productivity either reduces labor, improves output, or both.

And by that measure, argues Northwestern University economist Robert J. Gordon, the [smartphone]

"has done absolutely nothing" to improve productivity.” *

* Why Aren't Smartphones Making Us More Productive?

U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal , May 1, 2013, Page

B1

BlackBerry

Android Windows Phone

Apple iPhone

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19th century technology

“Why was ‘just as wide’ so important?”“One of the first railroads in the country, the

South Carolina, … had 136 miles of track by

1833, making it the longest railroad in the

world. It was … built to a 5-foot gauge, and

railroad builders all over the South followed

suit.”**

“American railroads were planned … with

little thought that [they] would eventually

meet.” From the 1830s through the 1850s,

the number of gauges proliferated.

By 1861, over 7,000 miles of track with [a 5-

foot ] gauge had been laid throughout the

South.

The Ohio legislature [chose a] 4-foot-10-inch

gauge. California chose … 5 feet, … Missouri

and Texas chose 6 feet.

By the 1870s, there were over

twenty different gauges in use in

America.”*

* Standardization of American Rail Gauge

“http://railroad.lindahall.org/essays/rails-guage.html”

** A long, arduous march toward standardization.

Smithsonian, March 01, 1985, Nesmith, Achsah

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19th century technology

“Why wasn’t this problem addressed?”“[T]he first serious efforts to bring

uniformity to rail gauges in 1853 resulted

in bloody riots. … where three different

widths of railroad met, … hundreds of jobs

[had been] created by the need to load

and unload … all the arriving cars in order

to change their wheels.

With so much well-paid work to lose, city

officials refused to grant the railroads the

right to close streets and bridges while the

track-width changes were made, and the

[state] governor … backed them.

Families, and even church

congregations, split … over the issue.

At one point, a mob of women took

sledgehammers and were tearing up

the various tracks until federal

marshals moved in.” * * A long, arduous march toward standardization.

Smithsonian, March 01, 1985, Nesmith, Achsah

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21st century mobile technology

“What efficiencies are possible? A logistics

scenario…”

Service Providers

ANY Warehouse ANY Transportation

Standard

Format

Standard

Format

Buyer & Seller

Systems

Value Point #2:

Single interface and

standard data format.

Confirm current details,

avoid mistakes. Notify

customer of service.

Value Point #1:

Single interface and

standard data format.

Confirm current details,

avoid mistakes. Notify

customer of service.

Value Point #4:

Industry standard

message. Single

delivery endpoint.

Value Point #3:

Industry standard

barcode and data

format. Universal

‘readability’.

Standard

Format

Value Point #5: Standard,

non-proprietary, message

collection and distribution

architecture. Near real-

time data collection.

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21st century mobile technology

“What enhaced efficiencies are possible?”

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Logistics

Surveys

Inspections

EquipmentServicing

Permitting

Consulting

Application

???

We don’t need MORE intermediaries in these data flows, we need fewer.

Adherence to Standards is the price we pay for this inter-operability.

Standards are being aligned across entire industries everyday.

(Telephones anyone?)

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?

21st century mobile technology “What are the enablers for this scenario? Methods, not Things.”

19th century technology “How then did ‘just as wide’ come to be?”The fact that Mr. Tarbutton’s railroad

was “just as wide” as the Pennsylvania

came about by an incredible event of

mass standardization.

“During two spring days in 1886, the

rails were moved on more than 11,000

miles of track … from Virginia to Florida

to Texas.

When the great shift was over, trains

could travel from the South to the North

or the West without … [the] changing of

wheels at connecting points that had

gone on before.

By Wednesday morning, June 2, 1886,

the South's rails at last matched the

gauge used by the mighty

Pennsylvania.”*, and Mr. Tarbutton

could make his statement. ** A long, arduous march toward standardization.

Smithsonian, March 01, 1985, Nesmith, Achsah

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The 19th century technology lesson?

• Or, the lessons of “just as wide”…

• Think & plan beyond current boundaries. Don’t let

the long-term interconnection opportunity be

obscured by the short-term appeal of the

technology.

• Entrenched interests can impede progress. The

longer the delay, the greater the cost & effort

involved in standardization.

• In innovation, oftentimes the “methods”

ultimately prove more important to empowerment

than the “things”.

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How to empower 21st century technology?

• Embrace standardization for the value it brings to the

entire chain, not just to your company.

• This is not altruism, its just a good, long-term, business

strategy.

• Insist that application vendors support industry standards.

• Solution providers need to realize that the value isn’t

generated by an oxymoronic attempt to implement

proprietary “methods” (‘standards’), but rather from the

innovation of “things”, enabled by those standards.

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How to empower 21st century technology?

•Make all our industry information

conduits “just as wide” by

supporting standardization.

•Learn the lessons of the past…

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Just as wide?

22Empowering 21st century technology,

with a 19th century technology lesson.

Thank you!