The unseen side of the Toothpaste Factory story

You might have read a story about a toothpaste factory that spent a large sum of money to come up with a sophisticated system to identify empty boxes before they reach the end of the production line. For those who haven't read the story, reliabilityweb.com has a nice write up by Cliff Williams, further explaining the story, digging deep into some unseen facts.

Before reading that, let's focus on the other side of it. To sum it up, a toothpaste factory spent millions for a six months long project by a consultancy firm, which provided the factory with a solution. Whenever an empty box is detected,  the line stopped and a bell rang, so that someone had to remove the empty box in order to get the line running again.

Soon after the modifications, the management could observe a huge improvement, where the empty box count hit zero in few weeks. Surprised by the level of value addition, they went on an inspection tour, only to find out a cheap desk fan placed before the system check-up point, which blew away the empty boxes.

The reason? A worker got fed up of walking over to the conveyer belt every time the bell rang and came up with a solution for his problem, eventually solving the company's problem. What about the new system? Totally useless. That shows us few things.

1. It was never 'his' problem before.
2. Regardless of being aware of it not, the particular employee never thought of solving the problem.

Thinking of the first, until the empty boxes became a burden to the employee, it was not 'his' problem. In other words, a headache for the management, which made his company spend millions of dollars was never a problem for him. Tells something about the bond he has had with the company, right?

Second, loosely based on the first, shows us another aspect of it. He may have never thought about it but obviously, should have known about the reason for all the improvements done lately, unless he was extremely ignorant. However, he had no reason to think about it and provide a solution.

The story doesn't reveal whether the factory had KaiZen suggestion systems and quality circles etc. but again, that is not the point. A concerned employee, who is loyal to the company and think wisely has to understand that the companies gain ultimately becomes his / her own gain, unless the company suppresses such returns to employees. Here, that motivation to think about the betterment of the company is not seen.

Having a motivated and concerned set of employees can actually save money, time and many other resources for an organization that genuinely works on maintaining such a workforce. If your employees really love their workplace, they will voluntarily think of the problems that the organization faces. They will also try to provide solutions, since they see those as their own problems. Think about it.