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Related: Culture Forums, Support ForumsA toothpaste factory had a problem.
They sometimes shipped empty boxes without the tube of toothpaste inside. This challenged their perceived quality with the buyers and distributors. Understanding how important the relationship with them was, the CEO of the company assembled all of his top people. They decided to hire an external engineering company to solve their empty boxes problem.
The project followed the usual process: budget and project sponsor allocated, RFP, and third-parties selected. Six months (and $8 million) later they had a fantastic solutution - on time, on budget, and high quality. Everyone in the project was pleased.
They solved the problem by using a high-tech precision scale that would sound a bell and flash lights whenever a toothpaste box weighed less than it should. The line would stop, someone would walk over, remove the defective box, and then press another button to re-start the line. As a result of the new package monitoring process, no empty boxes were being shipped out of the factory.
With no more customer complaints, the CEO felt the $8 million was well spent. At the end of the first month, he reviewed the line statistics report and discovered the number of empty boxes picked up by the scale in the first week was consistent with projections, however, the next three weeks were zero! The estimated rate should have been at least a dozen boxes a day. He had the engineers check the equipment and they verified the report as accurate.
Puzzled, the CEO travelled down to the factory, viewed the part of the line where the precision scale was installed, and observed that just ahead of the new $8 million dollar solution sat a $20 desk fan blowing the empty boxes off the belt and into a bin. He asked the line supervisor what that was about.
"Oh, that," the supervisor replied,"Bert, the kid from maintenance, put it there because he was tired of walking over, removing the box and re-starting the line every time the bloody bell rang.
Pacifist Patriot
(24,653 posts)keithbvadu2
(36,796 posts)No bonus for the maintenance kid.
He had no engineering degree.
KS Toronado
(17,231 posts)plimsoll
(1,668 posts)Engineers probably would have done pretty much the same thing. Thats a bean counting solution. They wanted metrics, not a solution.
iluvtennis
(19,852 posts)BarbD
(1,192 posts)Love these kind of stories.
paleotn
(17,912 posts)and probably more effective. I was taught a long, long time ago, when Japan was kicking our ass on quality (not cost like it is now with China) to talk to, empower and above all listen to the guys in the trenches. They know way more about what's going on tactically than we carpet creatures ever will. That piece of advice has served me well over the years.
Brother Buzz
(36,424 posts)KISS
Ron Obvious
(6,261 posts)Millions as I recall. Marketed as the Sensa/Fisher pen. When NASA management inquired how the Russians had solved the writing in Zero G problem, it turned out the Russians used a pencil...
KISS indeed.
ProfessorGAC
(65,016 posts)K.I.S.S.
Wawannabe
(5,657 posts)PRICELESS!