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When I was an analyst programmer at the end of the 80s and in the early 90s, one thing that was drummed into us, every time we started work on a new system, was that you designed the new automated system, but you also designed and implemented a paper based fallback, so that the business could continue if the automated system failed.
This was especially true of production lines, where a standstill can cost the company millions of dollars an hour, those systems had to continue, nowadays, there are often no backup systems (non-computer) that can run, if the computer system fails. They have become so reliable, as Steve says, that people don’t bother, or if they did bother, nobody has ever used them or knows how they work and, when the worst happens, everything stands still, until the OT and IT can get things back up and running again.
I worked for a software company that provided software for food processing. In the slaughter process for pigs (hogs), we had a SLA of 30 minutes to fix the problem! They are dropped into a huge cauldron for a couple of minutes and they go through a flamer to burn off the hair, for example. If they stay in the cauldron for too long, you have to throw away the carcasses, but there are no manual backups to the process, it is fully automated, so the carcasses stay in the cauldron until the problem is fixed…
I love Steve’s infectious smile and positivity.
I see him and he radiates joy.
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