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Home > News > News Archive > A Little Humour: Two Ways to Solve an Engineering Problem

A Little Humour: Two Ways to Solve an Engineering Problem

Toothpaste tube

If you're an engineer in the business of solving problems we think you'll like this!

A toothpaste manufacturer had a problem: they were sometimes delivering empty boxes without the tube of toothpaste inside, and it was starting to happen too often with complaints from customers on the increase.

The empty boxes were caused by problems on the production line, and people with experience in designing production lines will tell you how difficult it is to ensure that everything happens with timing so precise that every single unit coming off it is perfect, 100% of the time.

Small variations in the environment (which can’t be controlled in a cost-effective way) along with other factors can result in a small percentage of defective product. Unless the empty box problem could be addressed big customers like the supermarkets might delist the company's toothpaste and buy from an alternative manufacturer.

Understanding how important that was, the CEO got the top people in the company together and they decided to hire an external engineering consultancy to solve their empty box problem. Their own engineering department was already too stretched to take on any extra work.

The project followed the usual process: a budget was set and project sponsor allocated, requests for proposals (RFPs) were issued and third-parties selected. Two months and tens of thousands of pounds later they had a fantastic solution. It was delivered on time, within budget, was high quality, and everyone involved on 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 weighed less than it should. When this happened the line would stop, someone would have to walk over, remove the empty box and then press a button to re-start the line. No empty boxes would make it to packaging, and the problem should be solved.

Three months later the CEO decided to have a look at the return on investment (ROI) and found that the figures were amazing! No empty boxes were shipped out of the factory since the high-tech scales had been put in place. Customer complaints, to do with empty boxes, were down to zero and they were gaining market share. 'That’s money well spent!' he thought, and then decided to look closely at the other statistics in the report.

He quickly spotted an unexpected figure. It turned out that the number of defects picked up by the scales was also zero during the last two months of operation! The scales should have been picking up at least a dozen empty boxes a day, so maybe there was something wrong with the report. During the first month the scales had stopped the production line approximatey 12 times a day when empty boxes were identified by the scales. The production line had been stopped and alarm bells had rung each time, but since then nothing!

He launched an investigation and after some work the engineers came back saying the report was actually correct. The scales really weren't picking up any defects, because all the boxes that got to the scales on the conveyor belt contained a tube of toothpaste. There were no more empty boxes! Puzzled, the CEO traveled to the factory and walked up to the part of the production line where the precision scales were installed.

A few feet down the line there was a £20 desk fan blowing any empty boxes off the belt and into a bin. Puzzled the CEO asked the nearest worker about it. 'Oh, that,' said the worker. 'One of the guys put that there because he was sick of having to re-start the production line every time an empty box ended up on the scales.'