

A Toothpaste Factory Had a Problem - bprs
http://reliabilityweb.com/index.php/articles/A_Toothpaste_Factory_Had_a_Problem_/

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baseten
Any company spending 30k + on an automatic inline checkweigher is going to
have an automatic reject attached to it that would knock the underweight
product off the conveyor into a bin. That's typically a $1000 option on the
upper end. Much less if you just use a little air jet for the reject.

Or they could spend another 200k on a shiny new cartoner that doesn't kick out
empties, but that might be a really expensive fix for an intermittent problem.
Sometimes fixing the root problem long term is more expensive than the medium
term bandaid.

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jsun
Applying this parable to a startup -> the first solution was superior because
it required no specialized knowledge and got you 80% of the way there. sure
line efficiency was 15% lower and you lost a cheap empty boxes but for the
most part it was just as good. This goes in the "problems you can solve later"
bucket

edit: by first solution I meant the fan... the alarm was just stupid

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micheljansen
I almost stopped reading, because I knew the story of the fan, but this
version actually goes a bit further (won't spoil).

