Chapter 57 11.2 Replacing calculations with connections

I bought my first computer to build a customer database for my mail order business.After a few months of playing around with the Apple II, I hooked it up to a telephone line and had a religious experience ever since. On the other side of the phone interface is the young Net.The Internet was still in its infancy, but at dawn that day, I realized that the future of computing was not in numbers but in connections—a million interconnected Apple IIs would generate far more power than a single computer worth Multimillion-dollar, isolated supercomputers crafted in the most elaborate manner.Wandering in the Net, I had a kind of epiphany like enlightenment.

As we have predicted, computers as computing tools will propel the world into a more efficient era.However, no one would expect that once computers are used as communication tools, these computers connected by the network will completely subvert the world that has made many advances, and push it to a completely different logical direction-Net logic. The emancipation of the personal computer came just in time for the so-called "Me Era".Personal computers used to be mere slaves to the individual: these silicon brains were loyal and conformist, cheap and utterly obedient—and you could run them with ease, even if you were only 13.At the time, it seemed clear enough that personal computers and their high-performance descendants would surely reshape the world to our exact specifications—personalized newspapers, video-on-demand, custom plug-ins, and more.And you, the individual, are the focus and center of it all.However, the reality is once again beyond our expectations: the real power of this silicon-based chip lies not in the magical function of planning for us through number crunching, but in the magical ability to connect us together through digital switches.Actually, instead of calling them "computers", we should call them "connectors".

By 1992, networking technology was the fastest growing field in the computer industry.It shows that all areas of business activity are plugging themselves into new structures with light-speed efficiency.By 1993, both "Time" and "Business Week" featured cover stories on the rapidly approaching data superhighway in our lives-the superhighway that will connect TV, telephone and ordinary homes together.Within a few years, you'll be able to send and receive movies, color photographs, complete databases, music albums, detailed design blueprints, or entire sets of books with a "video dial" via a "video dial"—anywhere, anytime, and instantly Done - this is not a dream.

Networking on this scale will truly revolutionize almost all business practices.it will change: what do we produce how to produce how to decide what to produce and the nature of the economy in which productive activity takes place With the introduction of this networking logic, whether directly or indirectly, almost all aspects of commerce have been cleansed.The Internet—and not just computers—enables businesses to produce new types of products that are more relevant to consumers, faster and more flexibly.All of this is happening in a rapidly changing environment.In such an environment, almost all competitors have the same capabilities.In response to such a fundamental change, the legal and financial system will change, not to mention the incredible economic changes caused by the 24-hour connection of global financial institutions.And the cultural craze that is still brewing will surely rise like Wall Street, sweeping the entire network and turning it into its own use.

Web logic has shaped products that are shaping businesses today. "Instant cash", this kind of thing spit out of the ATM machine, only appears in the network environment.Similarly, there are all kinds of credit cards, fax machines, and color printers that can be seen everywhere in our lives.This high-quality, low-cost modern four-color printer is made by networking printing devices.When the printed matter travels through the roller network, each color is superimposed on the printed matter at high speed through the coordination of networked devices.Biotech pharmaceuticals also need this kind of networked intelligence to manage the flow of those "living base fluids" between vats and containers.Even the processed snack industry is urging us to adopt a similar approach, because the scattered machines used to cook them can also be coordinated through the network.

Under the management of networked intelligence, the ordinary manufacturing industry will also have a higher level.Not only will networked equipment produce purer glass and steel, but its adaptability will allow the same equipment to produce a greater variety of products.In the production process, the nuances of the synthetic components can be controlled, so as to break through the original general and rough materials and create more precise new materials. Networking can also help with product maintenance.As early as 1993, some commercial facilities (such as Pitney Bowes' fax machines, Hewlett-Packard's microcomputers, and General Electric's body scanners) could carry out remote diagnosis and repair.You just plug a phone cord into the machine, and an operator at the factory can poke inside to see if it's functioning—and if it's not, it's often possible to fix the machine remotely.This remote diagnostic technology was developed by satellite manufacturers -- for whom it is really not a choice: they can only repair the product remotely.Now, the method is being used to fix a fax machine, unmount a hard drive, or quickly restore an X-ray machine thousands of miles away.Sometimes repairs can also be performed by uploading new software; at the very least, the repairman can know what tools and accessories he needs to bring before going to the scene, thus speeding up the process.In fact, these networked devices can be regarded as nodes of a larger distributed machine.Eventually, perhaps all machines could be linked into a network so that repair crews could be alerted when they were dying, and could receive smart upgrades to improve themselves as they worked.

This seamless integration of well-educated people and networked computer intelligence within a company-wide network to ensure its superior quality has been achieved by the Japanese to the extreme.It is precisely because of the massive internal coordination of this critical information that Japanese manufacturers are able to provide the world with palm-sized cameras and durable cars.However, just as other sectors of industry have begun to frantically install network-driven manufacturing machinery, the Japanese have moved on to the next frontier of network logic: flexible manufacturing and mass customization.For example, the National Bicycle Industry Corporation in the Kokubun region of Japan produces custom bicycles on an assembly line.You can choose from its eleven million different models to place an order that suits your taste, and the price is only 10% higher than the average mass-produced non-custom bike.

The challenges that companies face can be briefly summarized as follows: expand the internal network of the company to include all entities or individuals that deal with the company in the market, thus weaving a huge network that connects employees, suppliers, regulators, etc. and consumers are included, making them all part of the collective being of the company. "They" is the company. Whether in Japan or the United States, those groups that have embarked on the establishment of extended distributed companies have shown great energy.For example, Levi Strauss, the world's denim supplier, has networked a large portion of its physical presence.A constant flow of data streams from its headquarters, 39 manufacturing plants, and thousands of retailers into an economic superorganism.When someone buys stone-washed cloth from a store in Buffalo, the sales data will flow from the store to Levi's network that night.The network aggregates this transaction with those of 3,500 other retail outlets, and within hours generates an order to increase production of stonewashed cloth to a factory in Belgium, or to request more dyestuff from a factory in Germany. , or ask cotton mills in North Carolina to increase denim supplies.

The same signals make networked factories work.Bundles of cloth are brought here from the factory with barcodes.The barcodes on the cloth will be tracked by hand-held laser barcode readers as it turns into trousers: from the weaving mill to the delivery truck to the store shelf.At the same time, the mall will receive an answer: the pants used to restock are on their way.And all of this happened in a matter of days. The loop from customer purchase to ordering materials to production is so tight that some highly networked outfitters, such as Benetton, boast that their sweaters won't be dyed until they leave the house of.When shoppers at chains everywhere start snapping up turquoise jumpers, within days, Benetton's network starts adding dyes in the color.In this way, it is not the fashion experts who determine the color of the season, but the cash registers.In this way, Benetton can always stand at the forefront of the ever-changing fashion trends.

If you use the network to connect computer-aided design tools and computer-aided manufacturing, then what you can do is not only to control the color flexibly, but also to control the entire design process flexibly.You can design a pattern in a short period of time, then produce and release a small amount, and then quickly modify it according to feedback. Once successful, you can quickly increase the output.The whole cycle only takes a few days.Until recently, this cycle needed to be measured in quarters or even years, with very limited options.Kao is a detergent and cosmetics manufacturer in Japan.It has developed an extremely tight network of delivery systems, allowing even the smallest orders to be delivered within 24 hours.

So why not make cars and plastics the same way?In fact, you can.But there is a prerequisite, a truly adaptable factory must be modular.That way, its tools and processes can be quickly adjusted and reconfigured to produce different models of cars, or different formulations of plastics.One day the assembly line is making station wagons or Styrofoam, the next day it's making Jeeps or Plexiglas.Technicians call this flexible manufacturing.Assembly lines can be adjusted to suit the needs of the product.This is a very hot area of ​​research with huge potential.If you can make adjustments to the production process on the fly without stopping the entire process, you can produce different things in a batch. To get that kind of flexibility in your production line, though, you'd have to tiptoe the multi-ton machines that are now riveted to the ground.Getting them to dance requires replacing a lot of bulky stuff with networked smart components.To achieve flexible manufacturing, flexibility must be built into the system.This means that the machine tooling itself has to be adjustable, the material distribution plan has to be able to turn around in close proximity, all labor has to be coordinated as a whole, there must be no interruptions to the packaging supplier, and the shipping line has to be flexible. is adjustable, marketing must also be in sync.And all of these are done through the network. Today, my factory may need 21 flatbed trucks, 73 tons of acetate resin, 2000 kilowatts of electricity and 576 hours of labor, but the next day, it may not need anything.So, if you're a company that supplies acetate or electricity, you need to be as flexible as I am, otherwise we can't work together.We will work together as one network, sharing information and control.By this time, it was sometimes hard to tell who was working for whom. FedEx used to ship computer core components for IBM.And now, it also stores these accessories in its own warehouse.With the help of the network, FedEx knows exactly where a new incoming part is located—even if it has just been produced at an overseas supplier.When you order something from IBM's catalog, FedEx delivers it to you through their worldwide distribution service.When the guy at FedEx delivers this accessory to your door, who the hell is the shipper?Is it IBM or FedEx?Schneider Logistics is another example.The first national trucking company in the United States has connected all its trucks to the network in real time via satellite.The orders of some important customers are sent directly to Schneider's dispatching computer, and the bills are also received directly from Schneider's computer.Who's in charge?Where is the business boundary between transportation companies and suppliers? Consumers are also being drawn into this distributed company at a rapid pace.The ubiquitous "800" (collect line) would soon be ringing on the shop floor, so that user feedback would have a direct impact on what should be produced on the line and how it should be produced.