Think easier

High technology is cool, but sometimes "low" is more useful and more economical, the main thing is to move the brains in the right direction. Now you will learn the history of the toothpaste factory, where the problem arose of finding empty tubes at the outlet of the conveyor.

Conscious of the importance of the matter, the director of the factory summoned the heads of departments. The assembly decided to launch a new project – to engage a third-party engineering company to solve the empty tube problem, as its own design department was too busy to take on an additional task.

The project included logical stages: budget allocation, request for contract proposals, involvement of an independent third firm to select a contractor – and, 6 months (as well as $8 million) later, the factory received a fantastic solution – on time, within the budget, high-quality and all-satisfied.

These were high-tech precision weights. In case they detected a tube that weighed less than the standard (i.e. It was empty), the syrene was turned on and the accompanying pulse lighting, the conveyor was stopped, one of the workers had to get to the end of the tape, remove the missing tube, and start the line again.

Some time later, the director decided to make sure of the profitability of the project and, in fact, the return on investment: the results were striking - since the moment of installing the weights from the company's conveyor, no empty tube came, only a couple of complaints from buyers, and the market share of the factory products increased.

However, looking through the statistics, the director noticed that the number of defects recorded by the weights fell to zero three weeks after their installation and so remained at the same zero level to this day. But at first, at least a dozen empty tubes were found every day. This could mean only one thing - the report is untrue. The director ordered a recording device to be placed next to the weights, and after some investigation, the engineers that the information provided was absolutely reliable. The scales did not really record any defects, because all the tubes that reached them were full.

Confused, the director went to the factory, deciding to look at the weights on his own. And what did he discover?

A few meters before the weights, next to the tape of the conveyor, a regular office fan for $20 stood and blown the empty tubes into the basket. "Well, one of the workers put it because he was tired of walking at the end of the line every time the syrene sounded," the employee who ran past explained to the director.

It can be concluded that it is extremely difficult to find a simple solution, initially guided by a complex and elaborate scheme of its search, or that an incentive in the form of a small incentive for ordinary workers, who like no one knows the technological process, is the key to the possible solution of many private production tasks. In any case, this story is a vivid illustration of what should be thought easier at any opportunity.