Sometimes Simple Is Better
Face it; men love mechanical widgets! Sweat shirts abound with logos bearing slogans such as “He who dies with the most toys wins!” and “One tool away from greatness.” And of course I’ve been known to sell a tool or two myself, not to mention my own tool collection. My turning club gave me a Christmas present one year which was a manual hack saw with a power cord attached to the handle with hot melt glue. They said that if I couldn’t plug it in, I wouldn’t know how to use it.
I would like to paraphrase a true story I read a couple of years ago which has really stuck with me. I am doing this from memory so if you know this story, keep that in mind. It seems that one of the major toothpaste manufactures had a problem on its filling line with too many empty boxes and they were receiving complaints right and left. The CEO was furious and demanded a solution so they called in the consultants who promptly designed a sophisticated weighing system to detect the empty toothpaste boxes. Whenever it detected an underweight box it would sound a very loud siren and shut down the entire line so the offending package could be located and removed before it ever made it to the customer. This solution was a very reasonable $8 million dollars.
Two weeks after it was installed, the CEO visited the plant to review the results. He asked for the report on how many empty boxes the new $8 million system was detecting and was amazed to learn that it had not detected any empty boxes at all for a full week. When he asked for an explanation, he was told that one of the employees on the line became quite annoyed at the excessively loud siren and that it was a real pain to restart the line every time the alarm was tripped. So he placed a $10 fan aimed at boxes on the line just before the new $8 million dollar system. Any empty box was so much lighter than the filled ones that it simply blew off the line and never made it to the fancy new detectors. Sometimes “Simple is Better”. Common sense could put a lot of consultants out of a job.
The next time you are trying to solve a problem, may I recommend that you sleep on it first before you spend lots of cash? All you might need is a $10 fan! Because wherever you go, there you are. However, if you get up in the morning and still need to buy something, please visit www.ronbrownsbest.com, the grandbabies need new shoes and we are giving 20% off of everything on our web site through May 31st. Wishing you a happy Memorial Day.
Here is my inspiration for this week’s message:
Psalm 19:7–8 NIV
7 The law of the LORD is perfect, refreshing the soul. The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy, making wise the simple. 8 The precepts of the LORD are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the LORD are radiant, giving light to the eyes.
