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Thread ID: 134805	2013-08-15 10:03:00	Government v Toothpaste	SP8's (9836)	PC World Chat

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
1351254	2013-08-15 10:03:00	Well not really ... but does the story below remind you of the way Government spend our money ?? A toothpaste factory had a problem. They sometimes shipped empty boxes without the tube inside. This challenged their perceived quality with the buyers and distributors. Understanding how important the relationship with them was, the CEO of the company assembled his top people. They decided to hire an external engineering company to solve their empty boxes problem. The project followed the usual process: budget and project sponsor allocated, RFP, and third-parties selected. Six months (and $8 million) later they had a fantastic solution - on time, on budget, and high quality. Everyone in the project was pleased. They solved the problem by using a high-tech precision scale that would sound a bell and flash lights whenever a toothpaste box weighed less than it should. The line would stop, someone would walk over, remove the defective box, and then press another button to re-start the line. As a result of the new package monitoring process, no empty boxes were being shipped out of the factory. With no more customer complaints, the CEO felt the $8 million was well spent. He then reviewed the line statistics report and discovered the number of empty boxes picked up by the scale in the first week was consistent with projections, however, the next three weeks were zero! The estimated rate should have been at least a dozen boxes a day. He had the engineers check the equipment, they verified the report as accurate. Puzzled, the CEO travelled down to the factory, viewed the part of the line where the precision scale was installed, and observed just ahead of the new $8 million dollar solution sat a $20 desk fan blowing the empty boxes off the belt and into a bin. He asked the line supervisor what that was about. "Oh, that," the supervisor replied, "Bert, the kid from maintenance, put it there because he was tired of walking over, removing the box and re-starting the line every time the bell rang." :groan:	SP8's (9836)
1351255	2013-08-15 10:37:00	That story is actually quite similar to something that happened at Joe Lucas (waits for response from R2x1). Around 1962 they were having problems at Great King Street on the windscreen wiper shaft production line. Some shafts were not being case hardened properly, but they were getting through to final assembly. Group Research was asked to develop an non-destructive on-line hardness tester to test each shaft after it had been through the induction heater and quencher, and for it to reject the defective shafts from the line. After a lot of work this was done. I then did what I should have done at the start, that was to actually spend some time watching the induction hardener to see why it sometimes didn't work. It took about 3 hours to see that the automatic chucking mechanism that held the shafts and passed them through the induction coil before releasing them through the quencher, was unreliable. Improved chucking cured the problem and rendered the online inspection equipment redundant!	Terry Porritt (14)
1351256	2013-08-15 10:51:00	It's actually a great analogy.	NelsonB (17137)
1351257	2013-08-15 20:29:00	Like closing coal mines because we import it from Indonesia instead? Maybe we should start importing milk powder......hmm..... Anyway, governments.....large corporates do this kind of ridiculous stuff.	pctek (84)
1351258	2013-08-15 21:36:00	Like closing coal mines because we import it from Indonesia instead? What really pi$$ed me off about that, was the interview on TV last night with that Mark Ford idiot ... laughing about it ... And then there was this ... Jobs to remain: 21 miners. 5 electricians. 5 fitters. 2 mechanics. 2 screen hands. 6 supervisors. 3 underviewers 1 mine manager plus other mine management 34 workers ... 10 + other mine management, but that includes the 6 supervisor. How many "managers" does it take to oversee 34 workers. This country is bloody screwed ... :groan:	SP8's (9836)
1351259	2013-08-16 00:39:00	Isn't managers more than 'workers' a common scene in NZ? :D Came across an 'organisation' with 6 managers managing 3 'workers' in the office. LOL	bk T (215)
1351260	2013-08-16 11:29:00	I love that first story :)	george12 (7)
1351261	2013-08-16 12:01:00	I agree with Terry, Lucas has pretty much always had a chucking problem. Mostly it was the users chucking up though ;)	R2x1 (4628)
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