Frank

Tell me an ending

Materials handling has a feature role in another big box office flick that just came out. Remember, a while back we talked about Wall-E? This time the movie is “Eagle Eye,” and MH plays a pivotal role in a chase scene. This time the plot mover is a conveyor that diverts the evil doer off the stretch down which he was chasing our hero. This diversion gives the hero enough time to make his escape. There are also plenty of lift trucks driving around for extra diversion, but the technology that’s the star of this movie is named in the title.

Eagle Eye is a giant computer system that was programmed to understand human motivation and also to be able to listen in on cell phone conversations anywhere in the world. These two talents help Eagle Eye take on a life of its own and to plot the takeover of the U.S. government—for its own good.

In the real world this technology is called artificial intelligence (something people tell me I have—is that good?). I guess there’s a good moral to this movie: don’t rely so much on technology that you get fat and lazy and let it take over. They tell me I resemble that remark too. But, yeah, I can see how letting machines tell us where to find something in storage, what and how many to pick, and correcting us when we don’t pick the right amount can get annoying. I don’t feel that way; in fact I find it reassuring. But I can see how a kid with a low boredom threshold might come to resent a warehouse big brother telling him what to do.

In fact I can see that kid getting mad. Mad and bored can be a deadly combination. So maybe one day the kid sneaks into the computer room and reprograms the WMS to select all the dust-covered C items for priority shipment to go out that day and to reslot the A and B items to the upper bays in the back of the warehouse. 

But the boss finds out about this sabotage and the chase is on. Down one aisle and up the next. The kid stays off the conveyor, though, because he’s smart enough to know that’s dangerous. Finally he finds a great hiding place he thinks his boss doesn’t know about. The kid thinks he got away, but little does he know, his employer planted an RFID chip under his skin during the last company physical and the warehouse knows where he is. That’s right, the WMS reprogrammed itself and is now going after this kid too.

The kid is sitting their in his hiding place, trying not to breathe too hard. Suddenly, an AGV with a clamp device sneaks up behind him and…

See I told you materials handling was exciting. But I’m tired. I’m also fat and lazy, and I don’t feel like finishing the story. Why don’t you help me? Go ahead, blog me an ending to this tale. Maybe we can sell it to Hollywood. They’ll turn all kinds of junk into a movie.

Posted by Frank on September 30, 2008 | Comments (11)