First example:-
When NASA began the launch of astronauts into space, they found out
that the
pens wouldn't work at zero gravity (Ink won't flow down to the writing
surface).In order to solve this problem, it took them one decade and
$12million. They developed a pen that worked at zero gravity, upside
down,
underwater, in practically any surface including crystal and in a
temperature range from below freezing to over 300 degrees C.
And what did Russians do .......................................?? The
Russians used a Pencil!!!
Second example:-
One of the most memorable case studies on Japanese management was the
case
of the empty soap box, which happened in one of Japan's biggest cosmetics
companies. The company received a complaint that a consumer had bought
a soap box that was empty. Immediately the authorities isolated the
problem to the assembly line, which transported all the packaged boxes of soap to the delivery department. For some reason,one soap box 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, 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.
Moral of the story: KISS (Keep It Simple,Stupid) i.e. always look for
simple solutions. Devise the simplest possible solution that solves the
problem :
So, learn to focus on solutions not on problems
Hahaha sometime we just like to complicate things around cause we thought we know the problem...
THOUGHT OF THE DAY
"If you look at what you do not have in life, you don't have anything"
"If you look at what you have in life, you have everything"
who else.., The Solution Man