Inspiration

We are inspired by the following story

Once upon a time, a company received spate of complaints that a customer had bought a soap box that was empty. Immediately the authorities investigated and isolated the problem to the assembly line, which transported all the packaged boxes of soap to the delivery department. For some reason, few boxes went through the assembly line empty.

Management asked its engineers to solve the problem. Post-haste, the engineers worked hard to devise an X-ray machine with high-resolution monitors manned by two people to watch all the soap boxes that passed through the line to make sure they were not empty. No doubt, they worked hard and they worked fast but they spent whoopee amount to do so.

But when a rank-and-file employee in a small company was posed with the same problem, he did not get into complications of X-rays, etc but instead came out with another solution. He bought a strong industrial electric fan and pointed it at the assembly line. He switched the fan on, and as each soap box passed the fan, it simply blew the empty boxes out of the line.

This story made us believe:

Every problem has multiple solutions. Devise the simplest possible solution that solves the problem. Learn to focus on solutions and not on the problem. Sometimes, the solution will be presented from unexpected sources.