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[Healeys] LATE Fri Funny ! ! Fwd: Engineering 101 - Finding Packaging te

Subject: [Healeys] LATE Fri Funny ! ! Fwd: Engineering 101 - Finding Packaging tech solutions.....
From: shop at justbrits.com (" Just Brits " Shop)
Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2011 19:23:20 -0600
*submitted by Bill B.of Atascadero, CA:*

Cost Effective Engineering Solution

A toothpaste factory had a problem: they sometimes shipped empty 
boxes, without the tube inside.  This was due to the way the 
production line was set up, and people with experience in designing 
production lines will tell you how difficult it is to have everything 
happen with timings so precise that every single unit coming out of it 
is perfect 100% of the time.  Small variations in the environment 
(which can not be controlled in a cost-effective fashion) mean you 
must have quality assurance checks smartly distributed across the line 
so that customers all the way down to the supermarket don't get angry 
and buy another product instead.

Understanding how important that was, the CEO of the toothpaste 
factory got the top people in the company together and they decided to 
start a new project, in which they would hire an external engineering 
company to solve their empty boxes problem, as their engineering 
department was already too stretched to take on any extra effort.

The project followed the usual process: budget and project sponsor 
allocated, RFP, third-parties selected, and six months (and $8 
million) later they had a fantastic solution - on time, on budget, 
high quality and everyone in the project had a great time.  They 
solved the problem by using high-tech precision scales that would 
sound a bell and flash lights whenever a toothpaste box would weigh 
less than it should.  The line would stop, and someone had to walk 
over and yank the defective box out of it, pressing another button 
when done to re-start the line.

A while later, the CEO decides to have a look at the ROI of the 
project: amazing results!  No empty boxes ever shipped out of the 
factory after the scales were put in place.  Very few customer 
complaints, and they were gaining market share.  "That's some money 
well spent!" he says, before looking closely at the other statistics 
in the report.

It turns out, the number of defects picked up by the scales was 0 
after three weeks of production use.  It should have been picking up 
at least a dozen a day, so maybe there was something wrong with the 
report.  He filed a bug against it, and after some investigation, the 
engineers come back saying the report was actually correct.  The 
scales really weren't picking up any defects, because all boxes that 
got to that point in the conveyor belt were good.

Puzzled, the CEO travels down to the factory, and walks up to the part 
of the line where the precision scales were installed.   A few feet 
before the scale, there was a $20 desk fan, blowing the empty boxes 
off of the belt and into a trash bin.

"Oh, that,"? says one of the workers"one of the guys put it there 
'cause he was tired of having to walk over every time the bell rang"!!

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