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-party selected. Six months, and
millions 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 with flashing 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 millions
was money 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, over the next three weeks, there were
none. 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 travelled down to the
factory, viewed the part of the line where the precision scale was installed,
and observed just ahead of the new multi-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, “Carl, 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 damn bell rang.”
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