I see that I last wrote about my doctoral research in January, a long, long time ago. I had just come to the realisation "that I had a huge enhancement taking place underneath my nose" and so made structural changes to the thesis in preparation for researching this enhancement (the warehouse management system, aka WMS). I didn't realise at the time how long it would take for the WMS to reach a stage where I could interview people about it.
It took a few months for us to upgrade our ERP system successfully (upgrading the standard system wasn't a problem, but we have a few external programs that are essential to how we work and these had to be modified to work with the new version); then we discovered that the database manager (i.e. SQL Server) had to be updated; then we had problems with the wireless network and the program that prints labels .....
I won't go into all the problems that we faced, but basically we only started working with the system in the middle of August, which was at least three months later than I had expected. I had been looking at the calendar with a worried expression on my face, as I have until the end of December to complete the research, write it up, reach conclusions and then finally submit the thesis.
About a week ago, I could see that the system had reached a state suitable for people to talk about it, even if it isn't 100% finished, and so I sent out letters to the four people that I intend to interview. Three answered affirmatively, although two have yet to agree on a date. The fourth person, the man who is running the WMS on the factory floor, hasn't answered yet, which is a shame, as I am very interested to hear what he has to say.
Today I interviewed the factory manager, who normally strikes me as distant and apathetic, but the interview was actually very good, and lasted for nearly 30 minutes. After I had asked all my questions, one more interesting question occurred to me: did the manager think that the long delay and slow pace of implementing the system was a help or a hindrance? I, for example, think that my slow pace in recording songs is actually beneficial as I get the time to consider and reflect on the songs before they are finished*. We agreed that the long time was beneficial, although it could have been shortened somewhat.
After completing the interview and finding the recording via Teams, I realised that there was no way that I was going to transcribe the interview. The pilot study from last year found that it took me about ten minutes to transcribe one minute of interview, so I was looking at nearly five hours work. I then started looking for the company that had transcribed some of the pilot interviews; at first I couldn't find anything (it didn't help that I started by looking in the wrong place), but eventually I found the receipt that I had scanned and from there got back in touch with the company and uploaded the file.
I wonder how long it's going to take for me to get the transcript returned: next week is the Jewish New Year which means several days off work. Then it will be Yom Kippur and following that another week or more off work. This is a double-edged sword: whilst I have time off work, the transcribers also have time off work which might well delay the return of the transcripts. I had looked forward to using the time on my hands to advance the thesis greatly; I suppose that I can listen to the interview(s) without having the transcript(s) and work on that basis.
(*) I have been working on the music for a new song over the past few weeks. No words, of course, and no idea about what the song is going to be about. Every couple of days I think that I have completed the music, but then I listen to it again and have some more ideas. So definitely I need time for contemplation and reflection on music.
No comments:
Post a Comment