Subject: Effort and simplicity

Quote 1:
Ever hear the story of the giant ship engine that failed?
The ship's owners tried one expert after another, but none of them could
figure out how to fix the engine. Then they brought in an old man who
had been fixing ships since he was a youngster. He carried a large bag
of tools with him, and when he arrived, he immediately went to work.

He inspected the engine very carefully, top to bottom. Two of the ship's
owners were there, watching this man, hoping he would know what to do.
After looking things over, the old man reached into his bag and pulled
out a small hammer. He gently tapped something. Instantly, the engine
lurched into life. He carefully put his hammer away. The engine was
fixed!

A week later, the owners received a bill from the old man for ten
thousand dollars. "What?" the owners exclaimed. "He hardly did
anything!" So they wrote the old man a note saying, "Please send us an
itemized bill."

The man sent a bill that read:

Tapping with a hammer $2.00
Knowing where to tap $9998.00
________________________

Effort is important, but knowing where to make an effort in your life
makes all the difference.
________________________


Quote 2:
One of the most memorable case studies I came across 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. 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
fast but they have to spend many hours looking at boxes.

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.
________________________

Devise the simplest possible solution that solves the problem. Learn
to focus on solutions not on problems. Be simple, solve simply.