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 travelled 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 box and re-starting the line every time the bell rang."

Genius!   

I'm told that there was a problem with pens that wouldn't write in zero-gee on the Skylab, so the Americans developed a sealed pressurized cartridge with a regulator at the nib. It worked perfectly.
And in the Soyuz programme, the Russians used a pencil.

Quote from: FierceKitty on 16 April 2013, 03:24:25 AM
And in the Soyuz programme, the Russians used a pencil.

Urban myth from what I remember.  The last thing you'd want floating around the interior of a high-tech spacecraft would be tiny shards of graphite.

Oh, how sad. I wonder if there's any practicable way to check.

Like it Tommy !!
Cheers - Phil.

Quote from: FierceKitty on 16 April 2013, 07:00:31 AM
Oh, how sad. I wonder if there's any practicable way to check.

Pencil's were used originally by both the US / Soviet's, but the fragment issue, plus the flammability of the pencil itself, meant that they weren't safe and couldn't be used.  There's more info here: http://mentalfloss.com/article/13103/russians-didnt-just-use-pencils-space, plus how they fixed it with the 'Space Pen'.

On the subject of pencils and idiocy, I cannot count the times I've spent 10 minutes or more looking for one only to realise I had it behind my ear all the time.

Quote from: ryman1 on 16 April 2013, 07:23:24 PM
On the subject of pencils and idiocy, I cannot count the times I've spent 10 minutes or more looking for one only to realise I had it behind my ear all the time.

Wow, that sounds familiar 

Could be worse. What if you were looking for your computer and found it behind your ear?

Or looking for your glasses and realise that you are wearing them .

..... and realise you still can't see.