A Novena to Saint Anthony, or How to Find Inventory by Not Looking

Among connoisseurs of Interfaces folklore, the title of this account may evoke fond memories of classic Woolsey-vintage articles [Woolsey 1972, 1973]. I hope the content is not held up to the same standard, but there are some parallels. The story is true, though embroidered through the liberties of poetic license and failing memory. The subject is accuracy of inventory records and cycle counts—an important real-life problem. The solution, simple but effective, demonstrates the importance of finding “the proper motivation for both parties to cooperate” [Woolsey 1980, p. 10]. While statistics and decision-tree techniques played a part, the key was a creative reformulation of the problem.