Comment

Interesting article in this Week's Economist about companies looking for UK replacements for their EU-based suppliers. For example, Nissan reportedly wants to double the share (by value) of UK-made parts from 40% to 80%. Worth reading with your coffee and a Hobnob or two. https://www.economist.com/news/britain/21730479-firms-shorten-their-supply-chains-divorce-europe-nears-brexit-triggers-round  

You can imagine my excitement when I read this story.  I used to love programming in FORTRAN, back in my Dowty Mining days. Anticipating my £21K winnings, I'd already started looking at new cars when I noticed this, at the bottom of the article: The sensitive nature of the code means the competition is only [...]

Hedgehogs are Britain's favourite mammal and 30 April - 6 May 2017 is Hedgehog Awareness Week. The week is organised by the British Hedgehog Preservation Society to highlight the problems facing hedgehogs and how people can help stop their decline. This year's focus is a campaign to try to reduce the numbers of hedgehogs hurt [...]

I like to keep an eye on what the competition is doing.  If you're looking for a system, I thought you might find the information useful. Here's my current list of companies who sell inventory control / ERP / MRP systems with similar features to Herschel. The information is from their websites.  If you spot [...]

Interesting story on the BBC news website about how the US nuclear weapons force still uses obsolete technology and 8-inch floppy disks. "This system remains in use because, in short, it still works," Pentagon spokeswoman Lt Col Valerie Henderson told the AFP news agency. It reminds me of the old version 11 of Herschel, which just [...]

Interesting (if slightly depressing) article by Ha-Joon Chang in today's Guardian about the need to reinvigorate British manufacturing: "The weakness of manufacturing is at the heart of the UK’s economic problems. Reversing three and a half decades of neglect will not be easy but, unless the country provides its industrial sector with more capital, stronger [...]

I’ve visited yet another company where everything is done using single-user, unwieldy, labour intensive spreadsheets. I’m sure if I visited their factory in 1916 they’d have used exactly the same methods of working – except with a ledger and a fountain pen. If only they’d chuck out their spreadsheets (after importing them into Herschel, of [...]

It seems 2015 has been another grim year, according to this week’s Economist.  “They were supposed to carry Britain aloft, but manufacturers have had a hard year”.  British manufacturing has fallen to 9% of GDP – Germany’s is 20%. Britain’s deep problem is “to get its tens of thousands of small and medium-sized manufacturers to [...]