Bert, That Bloke From Maintenance

A toothpaste factory had a problem. They sometimes shipped empty boxes without a tube of toothpaste inside. This challenged their perceived quality with buyers and distributors.

The CEO assembled his top people. They decided to hire an external engineering company to solve the empty boxes problem.

The project followed the usual process:  budget and project sponsor allocated, request for proposals, and third-parties selected.

Six months (and £2 million) later they had a fantastic solution – on time, on budget, and high quality. Everyone in the project was pleased.

They installed a high-tech precision scale.  Whenever a toothpaste box weighed less than it should: a bell sounded, lights flashed, and the line stopped.

Someone would walk over, remove the defective box, and press a button to re-start the line.

As a result of the new package monitoring process, no empty boxes shipped out of the factory.  With no more customer complaints, the CEO felt the £2 million was well spent.

At the end of the first month, the CEO 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 closer to a dozen boxes a day.

Puzzled, the CEO went down to the factory floor, viewed the part of the line where the precision scale was installed, and observed that just ahead of the £2 million solution sat a £20 desk fan blowing empty boxes off the belt and into a bin.

He found the line supervisor and asked, “What’s with the fan?”

“Oh, that,” the supervisor replied, “Bert, the bloke from maintenance, put it there because he got tired of walking over, removing the box, and re-starting the line every time the bloody bell rang.”

Aah . . . that’s better!

Source: e-mail from unknown author (sent by Granny1947)

 

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