Re: Natural keys vs Aritficial Keys
From: Bob Badour <bbadour_at_pei.sympatico.ca>
Date: Sun, 17 May 2009 03:47:07 -0300
Message-ID: <4a0fb2e3$0$23741$9a566e8b_at_news.aliant.net>
>> paul c wrote:
>>
>>> Tony Toews [MVP] wrote:
>>>
>>>> paul c <toledobythesea_at_oohay.ac> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>> (Occasionally they would have to rebuild a particular item. The
>>>>>> gravel pad at one
>>>>>> client where these are stored is about a mile square. Well, if
>>>>>> the plant has a
>>>>>> large expansion, and there's a lot of snow that winter, you can't
>>>>>> find the
>>>>>> assemblies. Until the expansion is finished a year or two
>>>>>> later and you're
>>>>>> looking at the excess assemblies which are laying on the
>>>>>> gravel.. And the folks at
>>>>>> the plant getting paid $25 and $30 an hour love being told to go
>>>>>> through all the
>>>>>> items on this gravel pad looking for particular assemblies. A
>>>>>> great way to spend a
>>>>>> shift rather than hauling stuff around or whatever.)
>>>>>
>>>>> i also meant to add that the above shows the beginnings of a case
>>>>> study that might be useful in general, although it's not clear
>>>>> whether getting rid of the union is a system requirement.
>>>>
>>>> Now this was about eight years ago so we didn't have the hand held
>>>> devices with
>>>> convenient GPSs that are presumably available these days. It was
>>>> quite a bit more of
>>>> a pain to assemble such a ruggedized device. I did a bit of
>>>> research, not a lot,
>>>> and couldn't find anything other than external wire attached GPSs.
>>>>
>>>> Nevertheless it was my suggestion to give the guys a device which
>>>> had a hand held
>>>> computer of some sort with a bar code reader and a GPS. Every month
>>>> or two send them
>>>> out scanning each bar code they could find. If they scanned the
>>>> same item with the
>>>> bar code at each end well who cares. Then come back to the office,
>>>> download the data
>>>> and now you know exactly where your inventory is. Tony
>>>
>>> Now you are diverging, imho, magic wands and such 'devices' being the
>>> system equivalent of what Edward de Bono might have called porridge
>>> words. That stuff can never outlive a useful concept, call it the
>>> techno trap if you want., .
>>
>> The fundamental problem Tony had was nobody ever put bin numbers on
>> the inventory bins. Solving the problem is as simple as adding a
>> logical identifier, any identifier, to largish areas of the inventory
>> field.
Date: Sun, 17 May 2009 03:47:07 -0300
Message-ID: <4a0fb2e3$0$23741$9a566e8b_at_news.aliant.net>
paul c wrote:
> Bob Badour wrote: >
>> paul c wrote:
>>
>>> Tony Toews [MVP] wrote:
>>>
>>>> paul c <toledobythesea_at_oohay.ac> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>> (Occasionally they would have to rebuild a particular item. The
>>>>>> gravel pad at one
>>>>>> client where these are stored is about a mile square. Well, if
>>>>>> the plant has a
>>>>>> large expansion, and there's a lot of snow that winter, you can't
>>>>>> find the
>>>>>> assemblies. Until the expansion is finished a year or two
>>>>>> later and you're
>>>>>> looking at the excess assemblies which are laying on the
>>>>>> gravel.. And the folks at
>>>>>> the plant getting paid $25 and $30 an hour love being told to go
>>>>>> through all the
>>>>>> items on this gravel pad looking for particular assemblies. A
>>>>>> great way to spend a
>>>>>> shift rather than hauling stuff around or whatever.)
>>>>>
>>>>> i also meant to add that the above shows the beginnings of a case
>>>>> study that might be useful in general, although it's not clear
>>>>> whether getting rid of the union is a system requirement.
>>>>
>>>> Now this was about eight years ago so we didn't have the hand held
>>>> devices with
>>>> convenient GPSs that are presumably available these days. It was
>>>> quite a bit more of
>>>> a pain to assemble such a ruggedized device. I did a bit of
>>>> research, not a lot,
>>>> and couldn't find anything other than external wire attached GPSs.
>>>>
>>>> Nevertheless it was my suggestion to give the guys a device which
>>>> had a hand held
>>>> computer of some sort with a bar code reader and a GPS. Every month
>>>> or two send them
>>>> out scanning each bar code they could find. If they scanned the
>>>> same item with the
>>>> bar code at each end well who cares. Then come back to the office,
>>>> download the data
>>>> and now you know exactly where your inventory is. Tony
>>>
>>> Now you are diverging, imho, magic wands and such 'devices' being the
>>> system equivalent of what Edward de Bono might have called porridge
>>> words. That stuff can never outlive a useful concept, call it the
>>> techno trap if you want., .
>>
>> The fundamental problem Tony had was nobody ever put bin numbers on
>> the inventory bins. Solving the problem is as simple as adding a
>> logical identifier, any identifier, to largish areas of the inventory
>> field.
> > most db experts can't say what the fundamental problem is when faced > with multiple systems.
Was he not talking about a large gravel field where inventory was stored? That inventory field was never divided into any sub-unit, which I call an inventory bin. Regardless whether one uses GPS or spray paint, if one doesn't put identifiers on anything, one cannot identify them.
That's why warehouses use bin numbers. His problem was the equivalent of
a warehouse full of stuff with no intenal subdivision and no way of
identifying where in the warehouse things were put.
That's a very basic problem and why men invented natural keys long
before the first computer was ever built.