50 DC VELOCITY SEPTEMBER 2014 www.dcvelocity.com
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More than a Source. A Resource.
980 Crown Court, Crown Point, IN 46307 219.663.4525 www.Balemaster.com
Balemaster® balers
put more green in your pocket.
If you are not baling your waste now, or if you are baling manually, then
you’re spending too much time handling empty cardboard boxes. Balemaster®
balers can do the work for you. Balemaster® wide-mouth auto-ty balers send
money to your bottom line in many ways. Here are just two:
1. Conventional hand tying takes 7 to 10 minutes per bale. But Balemaster®
auto-ty balers process cardboard waste into a dense bale that is
automatically and securely tied in less than 30 seconds.
2. Balemaster® balers produce bales with the highest density per cubic foot.
So there’s more material per volume than any other baler. This reduces
annual baling wire costs and maximizes recycling revenue per load.
Balemaster® balers are engineered to save energy, improve efficiency, reduce
wire usage, and lower maintenance costs. Being green is good business. But
pocketing green is even better.
Don’t crunch the numbers any other way.
HOW EVOLUTION WORKS
But, face it. RFID is just the latest
version of “automatic identifica-
tion.” One beginning was the sud-
den appearance of strange markings
on the sides of railcars and contin-
ued into the ubiquitous bar code
that has gingerly worked its way
onto everything under the sun, and
from hesitant limited usage, even
rejection, to a prime source of real-
time information for businesses.
So, the concept is rock solid
and mature. The implementation
has been 1) made possible, and 2)
continually evolving, owing to
technology.
A PARALLEL?
Is there a lesson here, a learning that is
useful beyond the parable? An old puzzle
for children was the riddle involving the
fox, the rabbit, and the lettuce. The challenge for their master was to take them
across a river in a boat that would hold
only two: the master and one other.
The rabbit cannot be left alone with the
lettuce, lest he eat it all up. The fox cannot
be left alone with the rabbit, lest he eat it
all up. The fox can be left alone with the
lettuce, but what’s the fun of that? So,
how can the master get all three—and
himself—across the river?
If we change the cast, the dramatis
personae, to something completely different, will the options change? Let’s say that
the boss has a box of apps, a techno-geek,
and a sales superstar.
The techno-geek cannot be left alone
with the box of apps, lest he bug them all.
The sales superstar cannot be left alone
with the techno-geek, lest he sell all the
apps to the geek. The sales superstar can
safely be left with the apps because he
doesn’t really know how to use them.
AT THE END OF THE DAY
Even with the updates, the core of the
riddle does not change. And so it is with
many of our Ahas. We have very, very
few completely new ideas to contemplate,
either in our supply chain and logistics
arenas or in life. We do have, thanks to
technology and a bent for continuous
improvement, many core concepts that
grow in power and usefulness over time
(while retaining their core concepts and
objectives).
It is OK to celebrate improvement, new
applications for old tools, and the march
of progress. But let’s save the coronations,
jubilees, proclamations, and euphoria for
those few genuine breakthroughs—and
begin the work of evolving them to new
levels, too.
Art van Bodegraven may be reached at (614) 893-9414 or
avan@columbus.rr.com. You can read his blog at http://
blogs.dcvelocity.com/the_art_of_art/. Kenneth B. Ackerman,
president of The Ackerman Company, can be reached at
(614) 488-3165 or ken@warehousing-forum.com.
