I've struggled to understand exactly why our productivity is so bad here and I feel that this really explains it quite well - over reliance in tried and tested methods coupled with a lack of capital investment - for example relying on push-carts in the yards rather than looking at whatever was a more automated approach. It's not necessarily a case of a "productivity puzzle" but rather a puzzle as to why business owners aren't investing.
I got talking to a guy in the pub who told me about a local tire business, running completely on paper and manpower. In 2025 there's barely a hint of computers in the business. Seems like a similar story really. They could be making more sales, be more efficient, still employ people but redeploy to more useful roles. But no, a prevailing attitude of just carry on with pen and paper, and the MD can buy himself a flash new motor every year. When asked why the don't use technology it was like a fear of it, that they would be made redundant. I don't even mean AI, I mean even like a simple messaging system to IM from one side of the warehouse to another.
It goes into a lot of detail on exactly how the process modernization happened in Brompton, with the sorts of challenges that you and the replies are talking about. The process and the workers need to adapt, in ways that the workers appreciate and fit the actual process of manufacture. Too often modernizations fail because they look at the "on paper" process, which isn't what the workers are actually doing.
> Too often modernizations fail because they look at the "on paper" process, which isn't what the workers are actually doing.
Also software installations fail because management decide what they want and go shopping for it, the users are not really in the loop about what they actually need, and management is an interchangeable class of people who think they know management but have often never done the job they are managing.
At the core of what you're saying about the "on paper" process is the fact that nobody does time-and-motion studies anymore.
Systems analysts barely exist in 2025, largely because interchangeable people in management get interchangeable "solutions providers" in, and they build the only flow that fits their existing tool.
A few years back I was hired to fix a bad web-based product for a niche-ish market (a niche within a standardised market) put together by rushed remote subcontractors who'd never talked to the client.
I was handed the spec and told I was to implement it. So I implemented it to a certain point, and then (because my mother had worked in that field and I knew what annoyed her) I thought: Hold on, a core flow of this implementation is awful tiresome CRUD busywork and they will hate it within hours. I already hate it and I'm only testing it.
So I argued to change the spec, suggested a better flow that better suited their needs (and allowed two use patterns — on-the-spot and at-the-end-of-the-day — which had different flow needs), and was told by the disconnected management: that looks good but we need to stick to our plan.
So sure was I that a bunch of hard-working good-hearted people would curse my name that I "prototyped" it to show everyone, and they loved it. Because it wasn't just better and faster, it was instinctive and fun. They had already understood that they were going to quickly hate the thing built for them, but this they wanted to use.
And then we put the prototype in production because it wasn't really a prototype at all: the job was so easy that the "prototype" was the solution. It was just something nobody had thought to offer because nobody listens.
Upshot: incredibly happy end users who gained back lots of time, and also experienced so much less frustration that a subsequent feature improvement could be less rushed because they were able to spend a little more time on a process they didn't hate as much.
I dread to think what this actively-not-listening development process will do to people when solutions providers just shoehorn AI in to solve anything they don't want to do a proper process for.
If you perceive your work to be artisanship (and a lot of people in the automotive and custom bicycle business do, along with people in the high end furniture business, for example), and you have enough customers who agree, and enough work to keep yourself and your employees busy and your families all fed, then a messaging system that speeds up productivity really is a lot of bollocks, basically (particularly for a company which is, in my experience of these amazing people, still disproportionately likely to hire people with dyslexia or reading difficulties). Because you cannot do more work of the same quality faster.
One thing tech people misunderstand is that these "artisanship" oriented companies can scale at least into the dozens of employees, almost all of whom want to do methodical uninterrupted skilled work or quiet, consistent labour, and who would rather hire four or five very understanding, very capable tech people to handle all that stuff for them. This is not a failing, it's a culture. Some great businesses in the UK run on the "don't add unnecessary tech bollocks" model, and IMO they should be encouraged to continue if they can, because that, it seems to me, is one route to surviving in an AI-bullshit-led industry.
The fact that the tech industry seems to thrill at systemically fucking this up and selling systems users do not need based on marketing fear that they are falling behind is quite depressing to me, not to mention a failure of systems analysis. Just because you are a tech person it doesn't mean you should be selling a messaging system to people who actually could just get the benefit from one more person to handle co-ordinating with the front office.
Tech people are, IMO, quite irresponsible in this way. We have all been trained to answer "we have a problem with X" questions with "we can build you a Y for that", when responsible consultancy would first rule out non-technical process flow improvements.
This is not Luddism. It is obvious that in skilled-work industries you should get things like "office-wide-instant-messengers" out of the way of people doing the skilled work so they can do it uninterrupted at an appropriate pace. There is no non-desk-bound job that is meaningfully improved by notifications buzzing.
I understand what you're saying, and I agree, technology doesn't always make things better. In this particular example though I'm not talking about adding frivolous software, I'm making the point they don't want to invest in ANY computing technology. Inventory, logistic, order, people or timesheet management. The example of IM is more a case of removing the requirement to hand a runner a note and them literally go to the other side of a warehouse to hand that note over. Apologies if that wasn't clear.
The thing is, that runner learns the business over time and could one day replace another employee. This is why automating away entry level jobs is not always a good long-term decision. Whereas e.g. Slack is just Slack forever.
And 100% agree, AI - Generative in particular - is a load of snake oil bollocks. It's not going to help any of us really. Hence the evidence coming out that companies are failing to see any return on their investments.
Ha, see what the unions have to say when you threaten the livelihoods of the poor downtrodden push card operatives, there will be placards and flaming braziers by the front gates before you can blink.
It's somewhat reasonable given the dire history of UK labour relations in the 1970s. As you say, it's now 2025 and the only people who can get away with that are maybe the train drivers. Everyone else has been casualized.
Except the post that you were replying to was not, was it? And you were talking in the present tense.
If you think unions have no possible value in 2025 you are either independently wealthy, retired on an excellent pension, or very misinformed. Right now everyone should be considering whether there is a union for them, because what is coming down the pipe is not good.
Nobody here is talking about unions in 2025 except you, the whole post is about the decline of British shipbuilding which happened in the second half of the 1900's, along with a lot of other industry.
So I responded, quite logically, as if you were talking about unions in a contemporary context. Not least because you replied in the present tense to a comment about the present.
Parent referenced push cart use which is from the article, hence my reply was also intended in that context. For future reference you might want to go a little easier on people rather than coming straight in with the snarky 'you must be independently wealthy' remarks, and make the goal to understand each other.
If the MD is able to buy himself a flash motor every year, perhaps he doesn't have any incentive to improve the efficiency. Sounds like he's doing alright.
I got talking to a guy in the pub who told me about a local tire business, running completely on paper and manpower. In 2025 there's barely a hint of computers in the business. Seems like a similar story really. They could be making more sales, be more efficient, still employ people but redeploy to more useful roles. But no, a prevailing attitude of just carry on with pen and paper, and the MD can buy himself a flash new motor every year. When asked why the don't use technology it was like a fear of it, that they would be made redundant. I don't even mean AI, I mean even like a simple messaging system to IM from one side of the warehouse to another.
Mental.