The press likes a good story like an automated vehicle, but you’d better ignore that and concentrate on whatever actual improvements your business needs.
Newsletter archive
The scope of the project grows
Many companies get into trouble believing that they can just install the software and throw in some data. Inevitably, the scope of the project grows and what was supposed to be a simple system ends up a confusing mess.
Disaster recovery
Two stories, one from Truckstop.com and one from Pixar, illustrate an issue that is often overlooked in young companies.
To get entangled, or not to get entangled?
Becoming dependent on an IT system can hinder progress. Not becoming dependent can make an IT project fail.
IT projects are experiments
The five times more rule is figurative. If you take it at face value, it’s stupid and pointless. It’s just a guide to a different way of thinking.
300k trucks on a 60k budget
When you estimate the cost of an IT solution, multiply it by five. What if you don’t have that amount? The same thing you will do if you need a 300k truck and can only spare 60k.
Five times less
Yesterday I wrote that when you are about to automate your logistics business, you should be prepared to spend five times as much as you initially think. What if you don’t have that much?
Five times more
When you are about to automate your logistics business, get into a mentality of “we are building it in order to throw it away”.
Peripheral issues in IT
When you give an employee a device, you might need to give it bundled with a carrying case, a specialized charger, or a towel.
The “safe” choice isn’t nearly as safe as it seems
Celadon Trucking, one of the largest trucking companies, failed. This can happen to software companies, and the results can be worse.
Deploying an IT solution requires other changes
When the Manchester ambulance dispatching service added decision support software, they had to change the way they were seated.
Technology is not a solution in and of itself
If you rush to adopt some automation without thinking about the repercussions first, you are headed towards a nasty disruption.
Fixing IT problems the hard way
The story of Twitter illustrates how software can start OK and then fail big. Twitter was able to overcome the problems with a brave decision.
Sometimes size matters less
It seems easy to trust someone to build a small software solution compared to a large one. What matters, however, is the impact this solution has on your business.
Does size matter?
If you need IT support, whom should you trust more? An individual, a small company, or a large company?
Why it’s risky to trust an IT person
The way to move forward with automation is to trust someone. And trusting someone in IT is risky.
The problem of automation is a problem of trust
Imagine if you had an IT consultant whom you’d trust so much that you could say “fix my company and give me the bill”. It’s hard to find one, because IT has some peculiarities.
Building a house vs. automating your logistics business
Automating your logistics business can be trickier than building a house, because the latter is a commodity.
IT is hard
Adding automation to a logistics business can be hard.
Controlled motorways redux
To achieve autonomy on the motorway, we need to modify the motorway as well as the vehicle.
Why bad names are bad
When you use “artificial intelligence” instead of the more accurate “probability modelling”, you create a bad legacy.
Level 5 autonomous driving will take between 5 and 500 years
This isn’t the first time people have inflated expectations from “artificial intelligence”. It happened again 50 years ago.
What does an electric car have in common with a compact fluorescent lamp?
Governments are about to force electric cars on us, just as they forced CFLs ten years ago.
Electric vehicles and the Gartner hype cycle
Electric vehicles are at the peak of inflated expectations. The faster we dispel the myths about them, the faster we’ll go to the plateau of productivity.
Battery charge/discharge efficiency
If you addup the efficiency of the electric motor, the charge/discharge efficiency of the battery, the efficiency of the power plant, and the energy needed to construct the battery, electric vehicles seem to need more energy.
Amen
“For policymakers, encouraging high income consumers to purchase electric vehicles with questionable environmental benefits is not the answer.”
How hazardous is battery production?
Whether something is environmentally friendly or not is not only a matter of how much CO₂ it produces.
Electric vehicles: real vs imagined benefits
I like Volvo’s marketing of their electric trucks, because it doesn’t feature imagined benefits such as energy savings and “zero emissions.”
EV vs ICV: Zero evidence on which needs less energy
There is not any evidence whatsoever that electric need less energy than internal combustion vehicles.
There is no such thing as a driverless truck
The driver is not just someone who monitors the road ahead and decides when to press the brakes. The driver is the person responsible for the vehicle while it is on road.
When “zero emissions” means zero emissions
“Zero emissions” vehicles produce nonzero emissions, unless you can ensure all electricity comes from hydro or nuclear.
Zero cows
Milk bought at a supermarket doesn’t need cows.
What is the energy required to construct a battery?
Batteries seem to take quite a lot of energy to manufacture. If you take that into account, electric cars are not energy efficient.
Are batteries environmentally friendly?
Electric motors are cool, but before we conclude that batteries are environmentally friendly, we need to answer some questions.
Batteries won’t necessarily become better
Are you waiting for batteries to become better? Don’t hold your breath!
Specific energy matters
Electric is good for some uses, but on vehicles, ships and planes there’s the problem of specific energy of the batteries.
Zero emissions redux
The definition of a zero emission vehicle is… strange.
“Zero emissions”
“Zero emissions” actually means nonzero emissions.
Noticing unusual sounds
What will a driverless truck do if the engine is making a strange noise?
How Ware uses autonomy in a controlled environment
Computer vision and other modern technologies are great and can be used to achieve autonomy in controlled environments.
Truck trains
Instead of driverless trucks, could we possibly build trains of trucks?
Driver assisting vs. driverless
Recently there have been several experiments where a truck goes out driving “on its own”. Except that there is actually a driver in the cabin.
Is Atlas autonomous?
If Atlas looks so impressive, it’s because it looks like us. It’s not because it has any intelligence at all.
How intelligent is one who can walk?
The Altas robot is impressive, but it is entirely unintelligent.
The mountain and the moon
Our progress in vehicular automation doesn’t mean we are necessarily on the right path to level 5 autonomy.
Dreyfus and Dreyfus on subworlds
Level 5 autonomous driving is not just a step beyond level 4—it’s a whole different world.
What do you do if a traffic policeman makes strange movements?
Trying to foresee all possibilities won’t solve the problem of true vehicle autonomy.
Level 5 autonomous vehicles in India
A truly autonomous vehicle must be able to handle this situation.
Controlled motorways
To take the driver out of the cabin, there’s only so much we can do on the vehicle; we also have to control the road.
The real world is a hard place for computers
Level 5 autonomy cannot be achieved by current technology.