The story of a empty soap box
Focus on Solutions not on Problems
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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 . Here are the two solutions from two different approaches :
Solution-A 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 .
WINSPIRE : Empowering youth | February , 2017
Solution-B But when a rank-andfile 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 .
Moral of the Story “ Keep the solution short & simple ” 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 .