Think simple.

One of the most memorable case studies on Japanese management was thecase of the empty soap box, which happened in one of Japan's biggestcosmetics companies. The company received a complaint that a consumerhad bought a soap box that was empty. Immediately the authoritiesisolated the problem to the assembly line, which transported all thepackaged boxes of soap to the delivery department. For some reason,one soap box went through the assembly line empty. Management asked itsengineers to solve the problem. Post-haste, the engineers worked hard todevise an X-ray machine with high-resolution monitors manned by twopeople to watch all the soap boxes that passed through the line to makesure they were not empty. No doubt, they worked hard and they workedfast but they spent whoopee amount to do so. But when a rank-and-fileemployee in a small company was posed with the same problem, did not getinto complications of X-rays, etc but instead came out with anothersolution. He bo ught a strong industrial electric fan and pointed it atthe assembly line. He switched the fan on, and as each soap box passedthe fan, it simply blew the empty boxes out of the line.

Moral of the story : Think simple.