Why Software Developers Should Understand the Physical Process

This is about the gap between building software from a spec someone else wrote about a process, and building it while directly involved in that process.

A spec describes a process. It rarely captures the exceptions: what happens when a box is one unit short, what happens when two people are on the same station on different shifts. Those exceptions are exactly what breaks software that was designed from a document instead of the floor.

I work as IT Systems & Operations Lead on RPOMS, which puts me on both sides: I write the software, and I'm involved in the operational process it supports. Rules like never letting a packer be recorded as a router's acceptor came directly from knowing those are different jobs on the floor, not from a requirements document.

Ask what happens in the edge cases before writing the happy path.

Spend time with the people actually doing the process, if you can, rather than only with whoever wrote the requirements.

Treat exceptions the operation has already dealt with informally as real requirements, not as noise.

Understanding the physical process doesn't replace good engineering. It's what tells you which engineering decisions actually matter.