Case 1
When NASA began the launch of astronauts into space, they found out thatthe pens wouldn't work at zero gravity (ink won't flow down to the writing surface).
To solve this problem, it took them one decade and $12 million. Theydeveloped a pen that worked at zero gravity, upside down, underwater, inpractically any surface including crystal and in a temperature range from below freezing to over 300 degrees C.
And what did the Russians do...??
They used a Pencil!!!
Case 2
One of the most memorable case studies on Japanese management was the caseof the empty soap box, which happened in one of Japan's biggest cosmetics companies. The company received a complaint that a consumer had bought asoap box that was empty.
Immediately the authorities isolated the problem to the assembly line,which transported all the packaged boxes of soap to the delivery department. For some reason, one soap box went through the assembly lineempty. Management asked its engineers to solve the problem. Post-haste,the engineers worked hard to devise an X-ray machine with high-resolution monitors manned by two people to watch all the soap boxes that passedthrough the line to make sure they were not empty.No doubt, they worked hard and they worked fast but they spent whoopeeamount to do so.
But when a rank-and-file employee in a small company was posed with thesame problem, he did not get into complications of X-rays, etc., butinstead came out with another solution. He bought a strong industrial electric fan and pointed it at the assembly line. He switched the fan on,and as each soap box passed the fan, it simply blew the empty boxes out ofthe line.
Moral
Always look for simple solutions.
Devise the simplest possible solution that solves the problems.
An ant can be killed in two ways......
#1) By lifting and pressing it by your hand....
#2) By Bombarding it with a missile.
Comments