Accountant here. It suprised me when I joined the field, but profit is calculated using a range of accounting estimates. Each accountant will make different decisions. Not least about which accounting period something belongs. Imagine a factory with freight inwards. It is month end and I have a sheaf of bills from various freight companies, but which ones are missing, not received yet? I can't wait, I have 2 days to report, so I make an estimate...now imagine that I have perhaps 100 such things. I may have to justify my estimates, but how should I estimate it? Same as last month? Perhaps I know there is a lot of shipments so I make it at the higher end.
Now I have a product failure at a major customer that I may have to send free replacements for. Should I recognise that cost now, or not? The accounting standards say if I know about it, and I can measure it and there is a high degree of certainty then I should. But the method of choosing is up to me. £10m or 1m cost, and this year or next...
and I get to decide.
We bought a £6m dollar machine to be depreciated over time, but how long. The machine lasts 10 years, but will we still be using it then? Do I capitalise the internal R&D work as well?
All of which is audited, but the auditor often only has the information I give them.
Accounting is not deterministic, within certain bounds it is very subjective.
As an accountant at a large Corp, I can tell you that there are cases daily where two senior accountants argue over how to interpret accounting and tax rules, and often each agrees that the others interpretation is valid. I regularly see rulings from area specialists, and have to challenge them, only to be told, 'well in that case, you would be right'
I sometimes ask an AI to comment, and usually their answer is couched is ifs and maybes, just like the humans.
I often consult with auditors who tell me x is wrong, and they go away agreeing that y and z would be valid too, and x is also fine. There are often second order effects that need to be thought through.
But the hard rules only work up to the point that there is an exception. See my other post above. Occasionally a very senior person (hopefully senior) has to approve a payment that is outside of the rules, because it is something the rules did not anticipate (and now they are hardcoded into software and can't be changed).
I run a team that includes people that do this kind of work using ocr software that matches invoices to po's. No AI needed. This is a solved problem. Why are there people involved? Because sometimes the invoice and po don't match. For instance, price on invoice is higher than po, refer to buyer. Buyer is sick, supplier puts you on hold, no parts for your factory, lose millions... Would you trust an AI to choose what to do next? This might get referred to me to resolve and make a decision, not just on the facts available, but on other facts I can discover, and years of experience. I might end up making an unauthorised payment, would you give an AI that power?
I think trains should be subsidised. Business needs its workers moved around, so central taxation should pay for that benefit. I just don't think those subsidies should go into train company profits.
I don't think me being annoyed that an object moving at 70 mph can't get a movement in air is an anti train stance either. It is a swipe at the people who sealed up the windows without a plan b.
In a couple of weeks I'm going 300 miles on a work trip on a route that is perfectly well served by train... but I'll take the car because it is half the price, so why give up the convenience?
I think he is just trying to say he spoke to 'a' year group. If he said he spoke to a class, would that help? You are right that it is not that specific, a year group maybe one class, multiple classes or part of a class.
Not in Glenrothes Metropolitan District itself, but in the wider conurbation there are some great ones. The 'museum to worldclass advantage that we gave away in fealty' is my personal favourite
For non-UK readers, Glenrothes is a giant electronics manufacturing hub, much like Shenzen. It benefits from excellent road and rail links to financial centres like Freuchie and has world class sea and air port facilities. 97.8% of European advanced electronics are built within 500 leagues of Glenrothes.
The group of children who are the same age. How that is organised into classes depends on how many kids there are. There may be several classes in each year, or like my little rural village school where each class had 2 year groups in it.
In the UK state system you normally enter primary school at year 1, go to secondary school for year 7, leave secondary in year 11 (aged 16, or 15 if your birthday is before the start of the new school year in September). This is when you take your General Certificate of Secondary Education exams. You are then supposed to go to Further Education, academics go to study A levels, either at same school, or in my case a Sixth-form college, which hilariously keeps it's name from when year groups were named from the start of secondary (so modern year 7 is old year 1). You may also go to a vocational college teaching everything from hairdressing to car mechanics or book-keeping. You can also do an apprenticeship with day release to said college.
From A levels (year 12 and 13, or 6 and 7!) you can apply for university. You can also continue vocational studies to the same level. This is known as Higher Education. It used to be that Universities were academic and took A level students, and vocational students would go to a Polytechnic college, but they are all called universities now. The vocational colleges also tend to offer HE courses now.
It is a bit of a mess at HE due to a turn of the century push to get more kids to degree level and it is suffering a reset, too many courses, not enough students. Some cynics feel this was more about managing unemployment numbers down, than producing more talent...
One interesting effect is that professions that were often vocational in their entry (some engineering, the non-audit side of accountancy) switched to being degree first. This lead to frustrations as 20 something year old finance grads entered the workforce to find they were 5 years behind their cohort that did an apprenticeship when they were 16, kept up their studies and were already climbing a ladder they had no foot on!
China scales its approach to demand. It can build mega- factories or it can build small batches. Small batches require the dextrous artisans you mention.
A recent story I heard. A mega factory, highly automated, and making 1000 units an hour offered to make niche products at 1000 units every 3 months. They didn't change their line, they added a new one that was manual. No MOQ, no long term commitment. No long delays. Just got in with it
I work at a large factory. Most of the senior people started on the shop floor or as engineering interns. It's a long road, but the pattern I see is smart people who are willing to put themselves out, volunteer to run a line, volunteer for continuous improvement projects etc. Most of those positions are advertised internally. In the management team I see many who started in a junior job 20 years ago. There are lots of roles at a large factory, so everything from finance, software development, legal, hr are all ways in. There just aren't as many factories any more
james (at) james <hyphen> meredith [dot] co {dot} uk
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