The Questions Haven’t Changed in 40 Years

Our first manufacturing system ran on a mainframe connected to a handful of dumb terminals — sturdy, built to take a beating, but hard on the hands after a long shift at the keyboard. Inventory movements weren’t entered in real time. They were handwritten on a three-part form: one copy to Data Entry, one to the department, one to Accounting. At the end of the day, someone keyed the transactions into the system.

Today we have cloud ERP, mobile scanners, APIs, and AI. Inventory updates in seconds instead of days. After 40 years in manufacturing, here’s what stands out: the technology changed completely. The questions didn’t.

What do we have? What do we need? Where is it? Can we ship the order? The tools evolve. Process discipline doesn’t.

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Lee Stout