[Mg-t] Engineering 101 - Finding Packaging tech solutions.....

[" Just Brits " Shop]

On 12/11/2011 2:05 PM, Rick Feibusch wrote:
> *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"!!