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Bill Gruby
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It's long but humorous at the end.
"Billy G"
A Short Story for Engineers
You don't have to be an engineer to appreciate this story.
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't 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 ****** off 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've 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 out of the belt and into a bin. "“Oh, that," says one of the
workers, "one of the guys put it there ’cause he was tired of walking
over every time the bell rang”."
"Billy G"
A Short Story for Engineers
You don't have to be an engineer to appreciate this story.
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't 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 ****** off 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've 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 out of the belt and into a bin. "“Oh, that," says one of the
workers, "one of the guys put it there ’cause he was tired of walking
over every time the bell rang”."
