10 ms·

A Short Story for Engineers

278 points by shawndumas 13y ago

southpawgirl 13y ago
> and six months (and $8 million) later a fantastic solution was delivered In real life the solution applied wouldn't be this one, nor the cheap fan, but some dude being paid peanuts to shake each box by hand.
- VLM 13y ago
  More likely you'd use the expensive scales to measure over/under fills (or tampering?) not just missing tubes. If toothpaste was your primary cost (LOL, I'm sure its advertising, just like cars and videogames and movies) then if you sell 4 oz +/- 10% and the new scale lets you run continuously at exactly 3.61 oz rather than "around four or so" then you make almost 10% profit by selling exactly 3.61 oz as "about four plus or minus ten percent packages". You can change it from a cheesy engineering / management joke into a CS discussion, so you're trying to copy one array into another, but sometimes you have an empty value and you want the output to be contiguous. Solutions? Or a RTOS type question where you're wanting to squirt out exactly one value 44100 times per second... Solutions?
  - southpawgirl 13y ago
    > so you're trying to copy one array into another, but sometimes you have an empty value and you want the output to be contiguous. This made me giggle. Thank you Sir.
  - xyzzy123 13y ago
    > Or a RTOS type question where you're wanting to squirt out exactly one value 44100 times per second... Solutions? Use a CD player? :)
l34ch 13y ago
Pretty funny. Just another reminder that sometimes the best solution is the simplest.
ausjke 13y ago
old story, it used to be a USA solution(high-tech, expensive) vs a Chinese factory solution(the fan added by a worker)
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- BlackDeath3 13y ago
  No wonder so many jobs are being outsourced!
mathattack 13y ago
Great story, and widely applicable. I worked on a very large process and technology improvement program for a Fortune 50 company. One critical piece of the project was a scheduling system for field technicians. After 100+ effort years (don't ask!) we got it developed and tested, and it achieved the 15 minutes per technician productivity improvement, justifying the massive expense. We then found that we could double the benefit by having them reboot their laptops weekly instead of nightly. (Though the technology architects screamed bloody murder)
- Aloha 13y ago
  I feel this - I'm stuck with the worlds worst scheduling system. Explaining to senior management (who have never worked in the field) is to give the tech a workload for N days, and let them schedule their own schedule is more efficient is useless. I probably waste more time with the 2 rather fussy VPN's I have to deal with than any other computing related task.
Aloha 13y ago
You'd expect the fancy scales to reject the empty boxes, but instead it appears they just sounded a bell. The workers added the rejection feature once they had an incentive to do so (the ringing bell).
- devrelm 13y ago
  Right. If a solution like this were implemented in the real world, it would almost certainly have a "kicker" mechanism to reject the empty boxes without stopping the whole process.
juddlyon 13y ago
Similar to the "Knowing where to put the X" story: http://www.engineering.com/DesignSoftware/DesignSoftwareArticles/ArticleID/4536/The-Hero-Work-of-an-Engineer-is-Knowing-Where-to-Put-the-X.aspx http://www.engineering.com/DesignSoftware/DesignSoftwareArti... Also, the NASA vs Russian space pen vs pencil.
- jlcx 13y ago
  I thought of the space pen/pencil anecdote as well, but that story isn't accurate, so I like this one better (even if it didn't actually happen).
  - mcguire 13y ago
    The pen/pencil thing has the weakness that pencils release small particles and are thus kind of sketchy in low-gravity environments.
    - warmwaffles 13y ago
      Nice sketch pun.
    - xyzzy123 13y ago
      Yeah. You could just use a grease pencil or thin crayon though.
- pargon 13y ago
  The space pen versus pencil is a myth perpetuated by people on the Internet who don't know what they're talking about. http://i.imgur.com/un3H3EN.jpg http://i.imgur.com/un3H3EN.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Pen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Pen
HCIdivision17 13y ago
My opinion has shifted over the last few years working in plants, and I've now settled on the idea that the fan solution probably needed the eight million dollar project. Without the project, the operator would not have been inconvenienced, nor would they have achieved their goals as soon. Also remember that the project was worth it - it was returning on the investment. Ideally the simple solution would have been found first for a massive windfall of savings, but industry runs on constant, small, incremental changes over many years. And it takes a very special mindset to invent awesome hacks like the fan trick! The operator should instead be applauded for making it so no other plant needs to buy such an expensive system! Edit: also, never underestimate the utility of inconveniencing operators. They will find the most brilliant, clever, and cheap hacks to solve problems. Watching operators is the best diagnostic tool available. When you see a c-clamp or duct tape on the machine, you know exactly what needs workin' on next!
- VLM 13y ago
  "The operator should instead be applauded for making it so no other plant needs to buy such an expensive system!" File a business method patent and charge $7.999M. Or worse get busted by someone else's fan patent and have to pay a $10M fine. (Categorize this as sarcastic commentary, not my personal business plan or endorsement) "When you see a c-clamp or duct tape on the machine, you know exactly what needs workin' on next!" Insert bad joke about OSHA fines because they found a way to defeat the safety interlocks again. Just watching punch operators used to make me scared.
  - HCIdivision17 13y ago
    To be fair, punch machines are _terrifying_, and the stories about why anti-tie-down circuits exist just make me cringe thinking about it. Again, operators are immensely clever, and, well, many consider safeties an inconvenience. And then they bring their cleverness to bear on it and someone loses a $BODY_PART$. As for your patent, I'll raise you a "but the patent doesn't cover a _five_ blade fan pointed at a _fifteen_ degree declination at the conveyor", with this leading to a new patent. Technically, that's what patents are all about, but it sure seems silly written out like that. But you're right, that's what happens.
seivan 13y ago
I think most engineers are familiar with easy quick hack solutions that are cheap and fast. You want this to have an effect? Tell it to the product monkey overlords or the design "gurus"
dkarl 13y ago
I like the values that jokes like this reinforce (simplicity, creativity, and proactivity versus complexity, expense, and bureaucracy) but I wonder if they serve a positive purpose in engineering culture. Do we tell these jokes to keep ourselves on our toes, to make ourselves better? Are we really in danger of forgetting which is better, simplicity or complexity? When we create complex and over-engineered systems, is it because we forget that simplicity is better? I don't think we do. I think we tell ourselves these jokes to contrast good engineering with bad engineering and to congratulate ourselves for being on the right side. A good joke would lead you down the garden path, encourage a bit of smugness and then rip the rug out from under you. This joke telegraphs the punch line from the start: it encourages smugness and then vindicates it. A healthy joke would make us uncomfortable about whether we would have been on the right side, whether we are doing a good job of living up to our values. This joke reassures us that the problem is other people's values, and by doing so, it promotes exactly the kind of complacency that it makes fun of.
- kelvin0 13y ago
  I definitely feel we have not read the same text. It is clear to me that a problem that can be addressed by a 8M$ or by a 20$ solution, the 8M$ can be ruled as 'over-engineered' and very inefficient in this particular context. I don't see how this inefficiency is promoted by such a story?
  - HCIdivision17 13y ago
    But the eight million dollar project is more efficient than waiting for a random twenty dollar fix. And as it seemed to be meeting the goals set for it, it was also likely more efficient than allowing bad product out the door, which is what this is really gauged against. Honestly, I was expecting the punch line to be that they found it cost more in the end because it shut the blasted line down for each bad box. I'm an engineer in a plant, and frankly that just seems insane, even if localized (accumulators are never big enough!)
    - gknoy 13y ago
      I think it might have been more efficient to hold a company meeting that said, "Hey guys, we are having a problem with empty boxes getting shipped. If you have an idea of how to make sure empty boxes get removed from the line, let us know!" Note that the simplest and most cost effective solution will be used, and offer a thousand dollar bonus to whoever suggests it. (The bonus might motivate people who otherwise might not care.) That is orders of magnitude more efficient than commissioning an $8M consultation, and is likely to find any low-hanging fruit such as fans-on-conveyor belts. If no one has any ideas in the first month, it's possible that such insights are not commonplace, and then you can go commission your million dollar consultation.
wikwocket 13y ago
This is a cute story about over-engineering and thinking outside the box to find the simplest solution, but anyone with manufacturing experience can tell you that many factories have compressed air lines at each machine, and frequently use it to blow bad parts off off of a conveyor/feed rail. American manufacturing factories are actually homes to tremendous ingenuity and practicality. To an outsider they may seem loud, dirty, and disorganized, but the engineers inside routinely deal with issues like "how can we catch bad parts before they roll off the line, using spare parts, scrap metal, and a $20 budget?" I have seen some amazing Rube Goldberg feeding systems that can outperform expensive laser/optical/diverter gate packages.
- VLM 13y ago
  A good analogy for the HN community to "To an outsider they may seem loud, dirty, and disorganized" is a LAN party. Are those still a "thing" or am I getting old?
  - lmm 13y ago
    They're still a thing, but I don't see the relevance. Many LAN parties are that loud, dirty and disorganized; I've seen enough PCs destroyed by coke spills or similar to believe that the LAN party atmosphere really is as bad as it seems.
ttdan 13y ago
Alternate take away: Visibility of key metrics/information (bell on expensive machine) is a strong motivator. Worthwhile when considering spending resources on things like creating informative dashboards and proper instrumentation to focus the a team on key metrics.
codegeek 13y ago
I have read this story before and it reminds of the phrase "Necessity is the mother of all inventions". What if that $8M project was never implemented ? The factory worker would then not need to manually go and remove the empty boxes. So one way to look at it is that the $8M project actually created a necessity to be more efficient and gave the guy an idea to not manually move the boxes by installing a fan which in turn solved the overall problem of empty boxes being shipped. May be he would have thought of all this without the $8M project but what are the odds ?
11thEarlOfMar 13y ago
There are a couple of points that come to mind. First, management needs to be judicious about how problems get solved. Does it require committee? Or a lone actor? Which department should own it or should the CEO take it on personally? Second, there is no doubt that an organizational approach to problem solving is going to change as a company scales. The path the information took in this parable likely was from customer service to upper management to engineering. A CEO that will accept an $8M solution to such a problem is probably running a multi-billion dollar company. If this had been a $50 million company, no way he would have felt satisfied that it was money well spent.
JackFr 13y ago
In 1985 I worked in a factory on a line producing tubes of vitamin A&D ointment (similar packaging to toothpaste tubes.) The filling of the boxes with the tubes was actually done manually, I suppose because ointment is higher margin, lower volume. We also produced foil packs (like fast food ketchup packets). That machine was the coolest mechanical device I've ever worked with.
SilasX 13y ago
A cheesy, apocryphal story written like a forward from Grandma on a site that looks like it was stolen from 1996? How did it make the front page?
johngalt 13y ago
I think there's a similar story about Fedex being the highest throughput network provider.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
dsugarman 13y ago
how it is usually done in the fulfillment industry is a scale that changes the track if it is off weight by more than a certain percent (think of how train tracks work). The problem here is tougher than just a toothpaste factory because you can have multiple items in one purchase order and you have to make sure all items are in the box. Stopping the entire line every time something is off with 1 package is never a good solution. With pushing the packages into a 'problem' pile, someone can figure out what is wrong with each one and get things moving again on their own schedule.
pmorici 13y ago
This is like an engineering urban legend. I've seen it on here before but the circumstances were different. Last time this was posted it was a Japanese soap factory instead of a toothpaste factory.
lani 13y ago
oooh !! 8 Mill !! I'd like that ..
kimonos 13y ago
Haha! Nice one! Thanks for sharing! Happy New Year to all!
- asima123 13y ago
  nice
loomio 13y ago
For me the lesson here isn't as much about engineering as incentives and inclusion. If you engage people who are actually on the front lines in solving the problems, great ideas will emerge. These are the people who understand the problems best, and can be most motivated to fix them. But in order to do that you have to effectively align incentives for them to solve the problems. If companies treat employees as disposable automatons, and do not allow them to share in the success of the business or benefit from improving workflows, they have no motivation for doing so. So many companies shoot themselves in the foot by bringing in "experts" when the real experts are right there on their payrolls, but no one is asking them their opinions or creating a situation where they would be inclined to give them anyway.
WalterBright 13y ago
The engineers should be working alongside the factory line. That this often doesn't happen isn't always the fault of the engineers or management. Back when I worked on the stab trim gearbox at Boeing, it came time to put it on the test rig and load it up. The test engineers gleefully told me they were going to bust my design. So joy for me, I got to go to the shop and get my hands dirty testing it! By the time I got there, they had my baby all mounted in the custom test rig, with a giant hydraulic ram all set to torture it. There was some adjustment needed, and I lept forward to make it. The union shop steward physically blocked me, and said I was not allowed to touch anything. I was only allowed to give directions to the union machinist there, and he would turn a wrench at my direction. Jeez, what a killjoy moment for me. Anyhow, to make a long story short, when they loaded up the gearbox with the ram, the test rig bent and broke, and that lovely gearbox just sat there. Nyah, nyah, nyah to the test engineers and back to the office building for me.
analog31 13y ago
Everybody standing on the sidelines with no skin in the game is always proud to point out the engineer's mistakes after they have been made. I comfort myself with Teddy Roosevelt's "man in the arena" speech.
spullara 13y ago
This is one of the reasons the engineers at Tesla work on the factory floor. Take the tour if you can, it is great.
bowlfeeder 13y ago
It's a nice story, but anyone familiar with mechanical feeding systems[1] could tell you air jets have been commonly used to reject parts for decades. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowl_feeder http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowl_feeder
coloncapitald 13y ago
The story doesn't suggest that that the CEO or management staff should have thought of a fan before. It suggests that they should have probably looked into the problem better which may have involved visiting the production line and asking the workers how they would fix the issue inexpensively. Then probably one of them would have come up with this solution, or may be an even better one. I see people bringing up points like "What if the fan dies?" or "what if the weight of the boxes increases due to extra packaging?". IMHO, these arguments are invalid because of the same reason. Fan is not the solution.
- narsil 13y ago
  It's possible the line workers would have never thought of this solution without having the inconvenience there to motivate them to. You could try to introduce a bonus to the worker who comes up with the most cost-effective and reliable idea though. It is probably very unlikely management staff would do that, since the engineering team has been "stretched thin" already and they didn't want to consult them.

278 points by shawndumas 13y ago

> and six months (and $8 million) later a fantastic solution was delivered In real life the solution applied wouldn't be this one, nor the cheap fan, but some dude being paid peanuts to shake each box by hand.

VLM 13y ago
More likely you'd use the expensive scales to measure over/under fills (or tampering?) not just missing tubes. If toothpaste was your primary cost (LOL, I'm sure its advertising, just like cars and videogames and movies) then if you sell 4 oz +/- 10% and the new scale lets you run continuously at exactly 3.61 oz rather than "around four or so" then you make almost 10% profit by selling exactly 3.61 oz as "about four plus or minus ten percent packages". You can change it from a cheesy engineering / management joke into a CS discussion, so you're trying to copy one array into another, but sometimes you have an empty value and you want the output to be contiguous. Solutions? Or a RTOS type question where you're wanting to squirt out exactly one value 44100 times per second... Solutions?
- southpawgirl 13y ago
  > so you're trying to copy one array into another, but sometimes you have an empty value and you want the output to be contiguous. This made me giggle. Thank you Sir.
- xyzzy123 13y ago
  > Or a RTOS type question where you're wanting to squirt out exactly one value 44100 times per second... Solutions? Use a CD player? :)

l34ch 13y ago

Pretty funny. Just another reminder that sometimes the best solution is the simplest.

ausjke 13y ago

old story, it used to be a USA solution(high-tech, expensive) vs a Chinese factory solution(the fan added by a worker)

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
BlackDeath3 13y ago
No wonder so many jobs are being outsourced!

mathattack 13y ago

Great story, and widely applicable. I worked on a very large process and technology improvement program for a Fortune 50 company. One critical piece of the project was a scheduling system for field technicians. After 100+ effort years (don't ask!) we got it developed and tested, and it achieved the 15 minutes per technician productivity improvement, justifying the massive expense. We then found that we could double the benefit by having them reboot their laptops weekly instead of nightly. (Though the technology architects screamed bloody murder)

Aloha 13y ago
I feel this - I'm stuck with the worlds worst scheduling system. Explaining to senior management (who have never worked in the field) is to give the tech a workload for N days, and let them schedule their own schedule is more efficient is useless. I probably waste more time with the 2 rather fussy VPN's I have to deal with than any other computing related task.

Aloha 13y ago

You'd expect the fancy scales to reject the empty boxes, but instead it appears they just sounded a bell. The workers added the rejection feature once they had an incentive to do so (the ringing bell).

devrelm 13y ago
Right. If a solution like this were implemented in the real world, it would almost certainly have a "kicker" mechanism to reject the empty boxes without stopping the whole process.

juddlyon 13y ago

Similar to the "Knowing where to put the X" story: http://www.engineering.com/DesignSoftware/DesignSoftwareArticles/ArticleID/4536/The-Hero-Work-of-an-Engineer-is-Knowing-Where-to-Put-the-X.aspx http://www.engineering.com/DesignSoftware/DesignSoftwareArti... Also, the NASA vs Russian space pen vs pencil.

jlcx 13y ago
I thought of the space pen/pencil anecdote as well, but that story isn't accurate, so I like this one better (even if it didn't actually happen).
- mcguire 13y ago
  The pen/pencil thing has the weakness that pencils release small particles and are thus kind of sketchy in low-gravity environments.
  - warmwaffles 13y ago
    Nice sketch pun.
  - xyzzy123 13y ago
    Yeah. You could just use a grease pencil or thin crayon though.
pargon 13y ago
The space pen versus pencil is a myth perpetuated by people on the Internet who don't know what they're talking about. http://i.imgur.com/un3H3EN.jpg http://i.imgur.com/un3H3EN.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Pen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Pen

HCIdivision17 13y ago

My opinion has shifted over the last few years working in plants, and I've now settled on the idea that the fan solution probably needed the eight million dollar project. Without the project, the operator would not have been inconvenienced, nor would they have achieved their goals as soon. Also remember that the project was worth it - it was returning on the investment. Ideally the simple solution would have been found first for a massive windfall of savings, but industry runs on constant, small, incremental changes over many years. And it takes a very special mindset to invent awesome hacks like the fan trick! The operator should instead be applauded for making it so no other plant needs to buy such an expensive system! Edit: also, never underestimate the utility of inconveniencing operators. They will find the most brilliant, clever, and cheap hacks to solve problems. Watching operators is the best diagnostic tool available. When you see a c-clamp or duct tape on the machine, you know exactly what needs workin' on next!

VLM 13y ago
"The operator should instead be applauded for making it so no other plant needs to buy such an expensive system!" File a business method patent and charge $7.999M. Or worse get busted by someone else's fan patent and have to pay a $10M fine. (Categorize this as sarcastic commentary, not my personal business plan or endorsement) "When you see a c-clamp or duct tape on the machine, you know exactly what needs workin' on next!" Insert bad joke about OSHA fines because they found a way to defeat the safety interlocks again. Just watching punch operators used to make me scared.
- HCIdivision17 13y ago
  To be fair, punch machines are _terrifying_, and the stories about why anti-tie-down circuits exist just make me cringe thinking about it. Again, operators are immensely clever, and, well, many consider safeties an inconvenience. And then they bring their cleverness to bear on it and someone loses a $BODY_PART$. As for your patent, I'll raise you a "but the patent doesn't cover a _five_ blade fan pointed at a _fifteen_ degree declination at the conveyor", with this leading to a new patent. Technically, that's what patents are all about, but it sure seems silly written out like that. But you're right, that's what happens.

seivan 13y ago

I think most engineers are familiar with easy quick hack solutions that are cheap and fast. You want this to have an effect? Tell it to the product monkey overlords or the design "gurus"

dkarl 13y ago

I like the values that jokes like this reinforce (simplicity, creativity, and proactivity versus complexity, expense, and bureaucracy) but I wonder if they serve a positive purpose in engineering culture. Do we tell these jokes to keep ourselves on our toes, to make ourselves better? Are we really in danger of forgetting which is better, simplicity or complexity? When we create complex and over-engineered systems, is it because we forget that simplicity is better? I don't think we do. I think we tell ourselves these jokes to contrast good engineering with bad engineering and to congratulate ourselves for being on the right side. A good joke would lead you down the garden path, encourage a bit of smugness and then rip the rug out from under you. This joke telegraphs the punch line from the start: it encourages smugness and then vindicates it. A healthy joke would make us uncomfortable about whether we would have been on the right side, whether we are doing a good job of living up to our values. This joke reassures us that the problem is other people's values, and by doing so, it promotes exactly the kind of complacency that it makes fun of.

kelvin0 13y ago
I definitely feel we have not read the same text. It is clear to me that a problem that can be addressed by a 8M$ or by a 20$ solution, the 8M$ can be ruled as 'over-engineered' and very inefficient in this particular context. I don't see how this inefficiency is promoted by such a story?
- HCIdivision17 13y ago
  But the eight million dollar project is more efficient than waiting for a random twenty dollar fix. And as it seemed to be meeting the goals set for it, it was also likely more efficient than allowing bad product out the door, which is what this is really gauged against. Honestly, I was expecting the punch line to be that they found it cost more in the end because it shut the blasted line down for each bad box. I'm an engineer in a plant, and frankly that just seems insane, even if localized (accumulators are never big enough!)
  - gknoy 13y ago
    I think it might have been more efficient to hold a company meeting that said, "Hey guys, we are having a problem with empty boxes getting shipped. If you have an idea of how to make sure empty boxes get removed from the line, let us know!" Note that the simplest and most cost effective solution will be used, and offer a thousand dollar bonus to whoever suggests it. (The bonus might motivate people who otherwise might not care.) That is orders of magnitude more efficient than commissioning an $8M consultation, and is likely to find any low-hanging fruit such as fans-on-conveyor belts. If no one has any ideas in the first month, it's possible that such insights are not commonplace, and then you can go commission your million dollar consultation.

wikwocket 13y ago

This is a cute story about over-engineering and thinking outside the box to find the simplest solution, but anyone with manufacturing experience can tell you that many factories have compressed air lines at each machine, and frequently use it to blow bad parts off off of a conveyor/feed rail. American manufacturing factories are actually homes to tremendous ingenuity and practicality. To an outsider they may seem loud, dirty, and disorganized, but the engineers inside routinely deal with issues like "how can we catch bad parts before they roll off the line, using spare parts, scrap metal, and a $20 budget?" I have seen some amazing Rube Goldberg feeding systems that can outperform expensive laser/optical/diverter gate packages.

VLM 13y ago
A good analogy for the HN community to "To an outsider they may seem loud, dirty, and disorganized" is a LAN party. Are those still a "thing" or am I getting old?
- lmm 13y ago
  They're still a thing, but I don't see the relevance. Many LAN parties are that loud, dirty and disorganized; I've seen enough PCs destroyed by coke spills or similar to believe that the LAN party atmosphere really is as bad as it seems.

ttdan 13y ago

Alternate take away: Visibility of key metrics/information (bell on expensive machine) is a strong motivator. Worthwhile when considering spending resources on things like creating informative dashboards and proper instrumentation to focus the a team on key metrics.

codegeek 13y ago

I have read this story before and it reminds of the phrase "Necessity is the mother of all inventions". What if that $8M project was never implemented ? The factory worker would then not need to manually go and remove the empty boxes. So one way to look at it is that the $8M project actually created a necessity to be more efficient and gave the guy an idea to not manually move the boxes by installing a fan which in turn solved the overall problem of empty boxes being shipped. May be he would have thought of all this without the $8M project but what are the odds ?

11thEarlOfMar 13y ago

There are a couple of points that come to mind. First, management needs to be judicious about how problems get solved. Does it require committee? Or a lone actor? Which department should own it or should the CEO take it on personally? Second, there is no doubt that an organizational approach to problem solving is going to change as a company scales. The path the information took in this parable likely was from customer service to upper management to engineering. A CEO that will accept an $8M solution to such a problem is probably running a multi-billion dollar company. If this had been a $50 million company, no way he would have felt satisfied that it was money well spent.

JackFr 13y ago

In 1985 I worked in a factory on a line producing tubes of vitamin A&D ointment (similar packaging to toothpaste tubes.) The filling of the boxes with the tubes was actually done manually, I suppose because ointment is higher margin, lower volume. We also produced foil packs (like fast food ketchup packets). That machine was the coolest mechanical device I've ever worked with.

SilasX 13y ago

A cheesy, apocryphal story written like a forward from Grandma on a site that looks like it was stolen from 1996? How did it make the front page?

johngalt 13y ago

I think there's a similar story about Fedex being the highest throughput network provider.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

dsugarman 13y ago

how it is usually done in the fulfillment industry is a scale that changes the track if it is off weight by more than a certain percent (think of how train tracks work). The problem here is tougher than just a toothpaste factory because you can have multiple items in one purchase order and you have to make sure all items are in the box. Stopping the entire line every time something is off with 1 package is never a good solution. With pushing the packages into a 'problem' pile, someone can figure out what is wrong with each one and get things moving again on their own schedule.

pmorici 13y ago

This is like an engineering urban legend. I've seen it on here before but the circumstances were different. Last time this was posted it was a Japanese soap factory instead of a toothpaste factory.

lani 13y ago

oooh !! 8 Mill !! I'd like that ..

kimonos 13y ago

Haha! Nice one! Thanks for sharing! Happy New Year to all!

asima123 13y ago
nice

loomio 13y ago

For me the lesson here isn't as much about engineering as incentives and inclusion. If you engage people who are actually on the front lines in solving the problems, great ideas will emerge. These are the people who understand the problems best, and can be most motivated to fix them. But in order to do that you have to effectively align incentives for them to solve the problems. If companies treat employees as disposable automatons, and do not allow them to share in the success of the business or benefit from improving workflows, they have no motivation for doing so. So many companies shoot themselves in the foot by bringing in "experts" when the real experts are right there on their payrolls, but no one is asking them their opinions or creating a situation where they would be inclined to give them anyway.

WalterBright 13y ago

The engineers should be working alongside the factory line. That this often doesn't happen isn't always the fault of the engineers or management. Back when I worked on the stab trim gearbox at Boeing, it came time to put it on the test rig and load it up. The test engineers gleefully told me they were going to bust my design. So joy for me, I got to go to the shop and get my hands dirty testing it! By the time I got there, they had my baby all mounted in the custom test rig, with a giant hydraulic ram all set to torture it. There was some adjustment needed, and I lept forward to make it. The union shop steward physically blocked me, and said I was not allowed to touch anything. I was only allowed to give directions to the union machinist there, and he would turn a wrench at my direction. Jeez, what a killjoy moment for me. Anyhow, to make a long story short, when they loaded up the gearbox with the ram, the test rig bent and broke, and that lovely gearbox just sat there. Nyah, nyah, nyah to the test engineers and back to the office building for me.

analog31 13y ago

Everybody standing on the sidelines with no skin in the game is always proud to point out the engineer's mistakes after they have been made. I comfort myself with Teddy Roosevelt's "man in the arena" speech.

spullara 13y ago

This is one of the reasons the engineers at Tesla work on the factory floor. Take the tour if you can, it is great.

bowlfeeder 13y ago

It's a nice story, but anyone familiar with mechanical feeding systems[1] could tell you air jets have been commonly used to reject parts for decades. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowl_feeder http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowl_feeder

coloncapitald 13y ago

The story doesn't suggest that that the CEO or management staff should have thought of a fan before. It suggests that they should have probably looked into the problem better which may have involved visiting the production line and asking the workers how they would fix the issue inexpensively. Then probably one of them would have come up with this solution, or may be an even better one. I see people bringing up points like "What if the fan dies?" or "what if the weight of the boxes increases due to extra packaging?". IMHO, these arguments are invalid because of the same reason. Fan is not the solution.

narsil 13y ago
It's possible the line workers would have never thought of this solution without having the inconvenience there to motivate them to. You could try to introduce a bonus to the worker who comes up with the most cost-effective and reliable idea though. It is probably very unlikely management staff would do that, since the engineering team has been "stretched thin" already and they didn't want to consult them.