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Management Side

IT Ten Commandments

Love it – the IT commandments are definitely right on the mark, as usual!

Thanks,

Chris Demler

West Chester, Ohio USA

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Why not take your 10 commandments as the first 10 steps in a 12 step IT self help program... Step 11: Make a list of all you have harmed. Step 12: Make amends.

Larry Wells, Atlanta, Georgia USA

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From our weekly quiz:

The IT group does a good job for being understaffed for a company our size. We also have some latitude for self actualization that keeps the friction to a minimum.

It's an individual thing, some in IT are great, a few think our company's biggest product is their IT department. I've yet to see a customer give us dollar 1 because thy like our IT department. They are a SERVICE - a few get it, many don't.

Local on site service is great. Corporate level Oracle system is terrible. But there is an upgrade going in right now which will solve everything, the pros are explaining how state of the art new system is great with no conversation with anyone below manager level. some good prod mgs are involved but I doubt anyone will design a system directed at the floor level user needs.

Since I provide my own IT support, I am discouraged by the amount of time it takes to fix something that even an average real tech could do in 5 minutes. I can't afford the cash to hire someone to help me at 8pm so I can get the report sent out for a client to read the next morning.

Another good post Jim, and as an invoice printer spinner it resonates well. I would like to make a couple of points regarding the list though. 1. Absolutely 2. Sometimes the client does have unrealistic expectations, as in our (packaging) industry "It's a paper machine, what do you mean you can't make copy paper?" 5. See 2. 8. I understand the striveth bit, but even paper machines with teams of specialists and much money spent, don't get 99.9% uptime. 9. This is the one that gets me. For an email upgrade or whatever, yes fine. We once had a site network upgrade happen around that time, probably to avoid disruption to the HR secretary's email access. Funnily enough it was the invoice printing related software that stopped talking to things like the winder controls and roll handling equipment. The IT guys had already put in a 16 hour day getting ready to go live. We had one electrician on shift to help us out. The winder was shut down as he was searching the PLC for a workaround. We got the winder running again eventually. A few hours into the following shift, they had another disruption on the winder, and shut the paper machine down for no reel-up spools. At least HR got their emails out the next day. As an invoice printer spinner, I'd much prefer that these events happen during a dayshift in the week, so that I have the maximum number of resources available should things go wrong; the tech dept guys can help out with watching critical trends that might not be trending during the upgrade, the full complement of electricians and mechanics are available etc. Should there be a disruption with the network due to maintenance, and a shiny bum ask me, "why couldn't they do this in the middle of the night, don't they know we work during the day?" My reply would be "Because if it causes a problem in production, and we need you to help us out, you're here." Our industry runs 24/7, and in respect of commandment 1, who is the 'real' client? 2am is a lonely time on a paper machine when a black box in one closet is not talking to a black box in another closet. And that's how I know.

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