The Times Atlas of the World - Compact Edition

And specifically if there was any increase after they came on line." "Increase? Just about all of our sales have been level or in a downhill slide since last year." I'm a little irritated. "Well, would you mind just checking?" I ask. He holds up his hands in surrender. "Not at all. Got all the time in the world." Lou turns to his computer, and after looking through some 74 files, starts printing out handfuls of reports, charts, and graphs. We both start leafing through. But we find that in every case where a robot came on line, there was no increase in sales for any product for which they made parts, not even the slightest blip in the curve. For the heck of it, we also check the shipments made from the plant, but there was no increase there either. In fact, the only increase is in overdue shipments-they've grown rapidly over the last nine months. Lou looks up at me from the graphs. "Al, I don't know what you're trying to prove," he says. "But if you want to broadcast some success story on how the robots are going to save the plant with increased sales, the evidence just doesn't exist ...»