To get everybody into the productivity loop
It is said that wasting a human life is a terrible waste indeed. For the huge majority of senior Americans, life after retirement could well be much less wasted, if some principles were enabled. Indeed, the enabling of efficient partial productivity could extend to many other categories of people. But for now, let's think of those senior folks who are "retired" and struggling to live adequately on Social Security retirement; thankful as they are on this provision for their present and future, maybe there can be more to life for them, beneficial to everyone while making them feel more useful and interested in life's activities.
Something of the "volunteer" quality to the activity, in that it involves voluntary participation doing things the person would like to do for the experience or for the sense of doing something worthwhile. Working at one's own natural pace at the moment, for the reward of just doing it, as well as financial reward and other perks. Activities which have been designed to add a cheerful and fun quality to some extent; no ogres and slavemasters permitted here; life is to be made more fun and with a sense of being worthwhile for both the individual and the group, the nation, the world, civilization, the planet.
Perhaps as important, is the potential to make America again competitive in the international manufacturing system, which has now mostly gone offshore to other countries. We could again produce a significant amount of what we consume of manufactured products, and surely have some to sell to other countries in return for what they make over there and we buy over here. We Americans get back into the manufacturing game, as well as some other forms of human useful productive function currently not economical to be done here anymore.
Thinking of the American view, of the country; and disregarding for this abstraction, the plethora of franchises, territories, and domains virtual, real or implied that will need to be consulted before real implementations.
Referencing the common terms "telecommuting to work" and "home business" perhaps these concepts could be expanded intelligently. People would perform some tasks at home that might otherwise be done in some business or manufacturing physical site. Computers and the internet have potential to link it all together on the informational level and the managerial level. Where there is physical product involved, the USPS, UPS, Fedex type services could pickup and deliver between homes and distant destinations; and among local neighborhoods, some people could shuffle containers of subassemblies between homes in a certain area which coordinate to build a specific product. A system like the old Japanese Kanban system of a container which carries a partially completed product, along with a checklist of what needs to be done to produce the completed product, moves from station to station until it is finished and tested. Each station receives a Kanban, removes the partially finished product from it, reads the instructions, adds parts to the device as is defined by the parts on hand from separate source, using the person's skill and tooling on hand. Then the Kanban is then moved to the next station for the next step in assembly; at times, a station does not add to the assembly but instead applies quality control measurements and testing to verify it is up to spec so far. Eventually the Kanban reaches the end of the stations on its checklist, after final inspection, and gets boxed for shipment for use by a customer.
In the system being envisioned, however, the Kanbans are moved from home to home, instead of workstations in a large manufacturing facility. A lot more time and energy is involved in the processes of shipping from home to home; this is less efficient. However, looking at the overall picture, energy efficiency is improved by the employees not needing to commute back and forth to a common manufacturing facility; and the resources that would have been consumed by the manufacturing facility are saved, in the big picture. But from that savings consider the reduction in efficiency required by usage of home space for the process, perhaps involving construction of an added room, instead of using a room vacated by departing children as they grew up. Specialized tooling such as computers and microscopes and drill presses might need to be acquired for the particular kind of steps that are done at that home facility.
More inspection time would be needed, sometimes repetitious, which reduces efficiency. So, lots of plus and minus for the evaluation of this concept. The big plus is that people who would not have otherwise have been in the productivity loop, are back in it again, even though at a lower productivity rate. One-quarter of one-time level of full productivity is a lot more than no productivity, for example.
A goal of the system would be to get everybody into the productivity loop, doing one or more functions, and being compensated for doing that function. At first, whoever is making this all happen, is likely to create tasks of the nature of "digging holes and filling them up again" to do, such as picking up trash from the street and putting in garbage cans, or taking some gadget apart while somebody else puts them back together again, just to get the feel of doing it all in a coordinated fashion. Eventually slip in some paying item for assembly or disassembly; like shifting from taking apart wrecking yard car alternators or engines piece by piece and putting them back together again along an assembly line among many homes, to the assembly and inspection of new engines, for example. Practice makes perfect and the experience is what counts at this point; in the KanBan system, each workstation (each home facility in the proposed scenario) includes ability to set up and use several kinds of tooling; and daily activity involves learning even more new kinds of knowledge and acquiring new skills as part of the daily routine.
People could become known, via their practice and performance, for their ability to make clean 3 mm holes drilled in 0.5 cm steel plate; or the programming of a small benchtop assembly robot to do a microscopic subassembly of a certain form.
Result is first to have people, all people, find a new level of usefulness in their life, whether a teenager looking for a first job; to a housewife with 15 minutes available off and on in her daily routine; to a retired senior who still has a lot of mileage left, just not at full speed, yet still can get there. "Homeless" people could be brought into the loop, with tasks found to be at their level for their self-esteem and a bit of productivity in it all somewhere. Not wasting all those partial human lives is a national reward as well as to the individuals; and the country may once again be able to produce some products at low enough overall cost here at home.
Something of the "volunteer" quality to the activity, in that it involves voluntary participation doing things the person would like to do for the experience or for the sense of doing something worthwhile. Working at one's own natural pace at the moment, for the reward of just doing it, as well as financial reward and other perks. Activities which have been designed to add a cheerful and fun quality to some extent; no ogres and slavemasters permitted here; life is to be made more fun and with a sense of being worthwhile for both the individual and the group, the nation, the world, civilization, the planet.
Perhaps as important, is the potential to make America again competitive in the international manufacturing system, which has now mostly gone offshore to other countries. We could again produce a significant amount of what we consume of manufactured products, and surely have some to sell to other countries in return for what they make over there and we buy over here. We Americans get back into the manufacturing game, as well as some other forms of human useful productive function currently not economical to be done here anymore.
Thinking of the American view, of the country; and disregarding for this abstraction, the plethora of franchises, territories, and domains virtual, real or implied that will need to be consulted before real implementations.
Referencing the common terms "telecommuting to work" and "home business" perhaps these concepts could be expanded intelligently. People would perform some tasks at home that might otherwise be done in some business or manufacturing physical site. Computers and the internet have potential to link it all together on the informational level and the managerial level. Where there is physical product involved, the USPS, UPS, Fedex type services could pickup and deliver between homes and distant destinations; and among local neighborhoods, some people could shuffle containers of subassemblies between homes in a certain area which coordinate to build a specific product. A system like the old Japanese Kanban system of a container which carries a partially completed product, along with a checklist of what needs to be done to produce the completed product, moves from station to station until it is finished and tested. Each station receives a Kanban, removes the partially finished product from it, reads the instructions, adds parts to the device as is defined by the parts on hand from separate source, using the person's skill and tooling on hand. Then the Kanban is then moved to the next station for the next step in assembly; at times, a station does not add to the assembly but instead applies quality control measurements and testing to verify it is up to spec so far. Eventually the Kanban reaches the end of the stations on its checklist, after final inspection, and gets boxed for shipment for use by a customer.
In the system being envisioned, however, the Kanbans are moved from home to home, instead of workstations in a large manufacturing facility. A lot more time and energy is involved in the processes of shipping from home to home; this is less efficient. However, looking at the overall picture, energy efficiency is improved by the employees not needing to commute back and forth to a common manufacturing facility; and the resources that would have been consumed by the manufacturing facility are saved, in the big picture. But from that savings consider the reduction in efficiency required by usage of home space for the process, perhaps involving construction of an added room, instead of using a room vacated by departing children as they grew up. Specialized tooling such as computers and microscopes and drill presses might need to be acquired for the particular kind of steps that are done at that home facility.
More inspection time would be needed, sometimes repetitious, which reduces efficiency. So, lots of plus and minus for the evaluation of this concept. The big plus is that people who would not have otherwise have been in the productivity loop, are back in it again, even though at a lower productivity rate. One-quarter of one-time level of full productivity is a lot more than no productivity, for example.
A goal of the system would be to get everybody into the productivity loop, doing one or more functions, and being compensated for doing that function. At first, whoever is making this all happen, is likely to create tasks of the nature of "digging holes and filling them up again" to do, such as picking up trash from the street and putting in garbage cans, or taking some gadget apart while somebody else puts them back together again, just to get the feel of doing it all in a coordinated fashion. Eventually slip in some paying item for assembly or disassembly; like shifting from taking apart wrecking yard car alternators or engines piece by piece and putting them back together again along an assembly line among many homes, to the assembly and inspection of new engines, for example. Practice makes perfect and the experience is what counts at this point; in the KanBan system, each workstation (each home facility in the proposed scenario) includes ability to set up and use several kinds of tooling; and daily activity involves learning even more new kinds of knowledge and acquiring new skills as part of the daily routine.
People could become known, via their practice and performance, for their ability to make clean 3 mm holes drilled in 0.5 cm steel plate; or the programming of a small benchtop assembly robot to do a microscopic subassembly of a certain form.
Result is first to have people, all people, find a new level of usefulness in their life, whether a teenager looking for a first job; to a housewife with 15 minutes available off and on in her daily routine; to a retired senior who still has a lot of mileage left, just not at full speed, yet still can get there. "Homeless" people could be brought into the loop, with tasks found to be at their level for their self-esteem and a bit of productivity in it all somewhere. Not wasting all those partial human lives is a national reward as well as to the individuals; and the country may once again be able to produce some products at low enough overall cost here at home.
posted by Unknown at
18:20
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