Frank

Tame your Frankenstein
July 29, 2008

My favorite movie is Frankenstein. You got this poor, big, dumb, ugly ox who nobody understands and everyone tries to avoid because he’s an unpredictable monstrosity. I can relate to this guy. He and I even share the same first name—well, technically it’s my first name and part of his last. But who cares? We’re like twins—except as far as I know, my parts are single-sourced (only my cartoonist knows for sure).

There are plenty of Frankensteinish material handling systems out there—and Imperfectly Franks working with them. Being Frankensteinish ain’t necessarily a bad thing. In this economy, plenty of systems managers are repurposing equipment. This can even be a green strategy. But the more you start attaching part A from one system to Part B of another, you might end up losing control of your creation. On top of that, Imperfectly Franks like me have to figure these monsters out. Plenty of cartoon material there for Modern, that’s for sure.

One guy I know bought a warehouse and his safety guys had to use his MHIA connections to various OEMs for guidance on equipment that was 30 years old. He didn’t know whose it was cause there was no labeling or anything. This gets to be an engineering problem, especially if there’s damage, and the techs have to figure out some kind of maintenance scheme. Over the course of 30 years people probably married parts together that maybe they shouldn’t have.

John Nofsinger, president of MHIA, says there’s some kind of labeling initiative being talked about to provide enough information that such folks can identify where pieces/parts came from and go back to the original manufacturer or provider and ask what the heck they’re looking at. If this catches on, then maybe there’ll be fewer monstrosities populating the industrial countryside, and they can be controlled by more normal brains. Software, I mean.

That’s Nofsinger’s vision, anyway. He says the technology is there to do this, but he’s not sure the OEMs have the will. Somebody’s got to find a way to pay for it, after all. Guess if there’s enough demand for this kind of thing it might change their minds.

Got a monster you’re trying to tame? Tell me if you like what Nofsinger’s talking about. Maybe we can show the Material Handling Industry there’s a big crowd with torches out there that’s sick of monsters.

Posted by Frank on July 29, 2008 | Comments (0)