Common Sense Prevails!
A toothpaste factory had a problem. They sometimes shipped empty boxes without the tube 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 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 solution - 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. He then 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, they verified the report as accurate.
Puzzled, the CEO traveled down to the factory, viewed the part of the line where the precision scale was installed, and observed 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 empty box and re-starting the line every time the bell rang."
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. He then 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, they verified the report as accurate.
Puzzled, the CEO traveled down to the factory, viewed the part of the line where the precision scale was installed, and observed 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 empty box and re-starting the line every time the bell rang."
Red: Bathroom - no other red cups are showing so I'm going.
Blue: I have a comment - I know the teacher may not answer a comment due to time.
Green: I'm done with my work, come check while I work on something else.
Yellow: I have a question; I'll work on something else until you answer.
White: Nothing - doing fine.
All the time my kids spent in class with their hands raised? GONE. They were constantly working.
I was told to remove it. It was not research-based.
All through this country teachers are tearing up their personal innovations due to the drive for "research-based" solutions. Innovation and creativity is being squelched on a major scale for teachers and our kids.
That's a big problem in big business organizations today.
Instead of offering their mid-level managers incentive reward for THINKING they 'offer' them the fear of firing if they DO anything differently.
What we get is S-T-A-G-N-A-T-I-O-N instead of I-N-N-O-V-A-T-I-O-N.
The self reliant "we can do it better" attitude that was wide spread in generations to (and including some) baby boomers is gone.
Businesses have to encourage it in all employees or Asia will prevail in the 21st century.
The bigger the business the worse this condition is ... except for the perverse financial banksters who encourage all employees to find new ways to loot the productive.
So easy and inexpensive a fix for the empty boxes had not dawned on anyone before the kid became annoyed by the extra work load.
.
They had a satellite that had a component that had to be refrigerated. The many solutions they had were expensive, added weight, got in the way of other systems, added cost, and was otherwise turning into a nightmare.
One of the younger staff members said, "Aren't we sending this into space? Why not just open it to space...?"
Lateral thinking CAN be taught (I do it as a professional teacher tutoring elementary through adult).
And crying!
I once had a wall that rattled when the furnace was on. We were part of a compressor test group, so I got five engineers videotaping my wall, but no answer. But, they did send out a serviceman to have a look. A few minutes later, all was fixed. He found a spider web in a vacuum tube. I guess the engineers needed a field trip.
People were moved around a lot with reorganizations and 'new floor layouts,' and we usually got new cubicles in the process. Sometimes a new vendor for the 'cubicle hardware'... walls, that is... came on board, and prompted the need for a new kind of NAME TAG to go on the cubicle wall... (really!)
There was a guy/department/whatever in charge of supplying the new labels, and I noticed one time that everyone got one label comprising two single-sided name tags glued together.
Problem: where do you put the label holder so people might know it's YOUR cubie and not the one for the next-door neighbor?
I pried my label(s) apart and put each half on one of the walls of my cube so that a person approaching from either direction would know that the cubicle they'd reached was mine.
Couldn't get the label-making 'establishment' to see the point or get any co-workers to adopt the bizarre idea.
Lots of other, more significant stories like that one made me a very happy retiree...