shipping, receiving

More management science - Accounting calls these inefficiencies "overhead," although theoretically they aren't there. But generically, OH is the expense of all the benefits and support people that it takes for the direct people who do things. (again, theoretical) (I am including G&A in here, for you acctg wonks.)

A bureaucat might get 80k base pay plus another 60 in benefits.

- just a guess. Now suppose you put in the retirement benefits? This burrowcat retires and collects a high salary for the next 30 years. Astonishingly, the real OH is now something like 2000% !

In other words, if he(she) walks over to the wastebasket and throws something in it, it might cost direct salary of $25, assume that she stops and talks with somebody.

So what did it cost to throw a piece of paper in the wastebasket? Astonishingly, it cost $525!

Interestingly, this is a reason, regarding welfare like medicaid, SSI, food stamps, etc., to just hand out the money and cut the bureaucats out of the equation.

Just my 2 cents (actually 40 cents.) jb

That is a pathetic state of affairs. Our company routinely sends out sets (50 - 75) of 8 - 10 layer printed circuit boards, our power transformers etc., etc., from our factories in India to USA, via DHL Express and they reach the customer in 4 days maximum. What is wrong with FedEx, OPS and TNT ?

UPS and FedEx work great. We know that stuff arrived at the customer site. But the customer can't find it.

The thing I sent overnight last Friday, they found late Thursday. It was on a shelf in the wrong person's cube. Nobody knows how it got there.

On 2014-03-06 19:26, John Larkin wrote: [...]

Sigh! Tell me about it! It's getting worse by the day here.

There was that time some official wanted me to use in-company transport services to move some small stuff from one building to another on site, complete with signed paperwork in triplicate. These buildings were facing each other on opposite sides of the road, a 30m walk away!

Jeroen (I'll walk!) Belleman

A good army wins wars by supporting the troops: weapons, food, ammo, transport, leadership. Engineers should be supported by purchasing, QC, material control, and management. Too often, they just get in the way.

It depends on the corporate culture. Companies started by engineers do better at supporting engineers than, say, companies started by scientists.

It is not so much knowing the difference between right and wrong, as it is complying with the intent or complying with the details. The money was app ropriated to be spent, but sometimes it is difficult to manage so that all the money is spent by the exact end of the year.

Dan

When I was working in P'ok IBM, many years they shipped mainframes less necessary hardware in December. One year, a hundred trucks were lined up in Kingston waiting for empty frames. They shipped them as completed units, knowing that the customer wasn't going to actually install them for 60-90 days, or more. The customer didn't care. They weren't paying for them until the systems were installed and they hit the IBM books as being "sold", so the bigs got their YE bonuses.

IBM certainly isn't alone. Intel did a similar thing to us one year. They shipped everything with legs, knowing that we'd fail them on incoming inspections. The fail rates on some of the parts were 10%. Everything got shipped back, retested, and everything was fine in February. Their bigs got their bonuses, too.

Quite true, all around. It makes no sense to jerk their suppliers around, either. It will cost them money in the end.

In this case it makes absolutely no sense. What does a manager know about what's actually been received? At best he just asks me if it's been received (he doesn't even do that).

Purchase orders aren't a big deal. The normal lag is a day, or two at the most. I can get it out the same day, if needed. DigiKey is really good about delivering overnight.

I remember that side of the coin, too. One year the boss came around and said that we were underspent by $500K. A few weeks later he ran back and said *STOP*. ;-)

Once again, Bloggs lies like Slowman. No surprises.

But I'm not likely to be at work on the weekend. If it's that important...

Sure. Amazon gets a better deal than I do, too.

I always had P.O.'s ready to go at the end of the FY. Made good friends with the accounting folks and made sure they had a few P.O.'s in hand so when other departments left money on the table, the paper was ready to go.

The real issue is the accounting people want to have invoices in on time so they can close the books. It's good to keep them on your side.

tm

Menagerie of idiots...why I am not surprised by that story.

Keep lying, Bloggs. You're so good at it.

Right. We have that same issue: we can expense some amount of equipment purchases, but we're not sure how much we have to spend until near the end of our FY. So, near the end, we are in a rush to get the stuff delivered and invoiced.

Small companies can expense something like $200K of gear every year, on a use-it-or-lose-it basis. If you're making money, the tax savings can be a 30% discount.

US corporate tax policy is insane. "A fine-tuned job killing machine."

State government is like that too. At the end of the fiscal year you find out you've got a quarter of a million to spend on new I.T. gear but it has to be at least billed out by FY end date, which is 10 days away.

Dell and HP got used to that and could bend to the tight schedule.

Yep - always keep yourself in the good graces of accounting and HR people.