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[Vatsal]

One of the most memorable case studies I came across on Japanese


management was the case of the empty soap box, which happened in one of


Japan's biggest cosmetics companies. The company received a complaint


that a consumer had bought a soap 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 line empty. 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 passed through the line to


make sure they were not empty. No doubt, they worked hard and they worked


fast but they spent whoopee amount to do so.





But when a rank-and-file employee in a small company was posed with the


same problem, did not get into complications of X-rays, etc but instead


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 of the


line.





Moral of the story: KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) i.e. always look for


simple solutions. Devise the simplest possible solution that solves the


problem :-)





So, learn to focus on solutions not on problems