Staying ahead of the competition, one screw at a time
Last week we were finishing up this system that we were supposed to
ship over the weekend. And during the final inspections my boss noticed
that one of the screws holding a panel looked rusted.
He called over our mechanical engineer, and asked him how could he have
missed a rusted screw. He was understandably angry, since it creates a
very poor impression when a large and expansive machine comes all new
and shiny, except for some rusted components…
The mechanical engineer didn’t see the problem, though. It’s just a screw, he
said, so what does it matter? It still holds, after all. After a brief
argument he agreed to replace it with a new one, but I get the feeling
that he still doesn’t quite get it. Which could be a problem in the
future, and certainly means my boss will inspect his future
constructions much more carefully.
And then it occurred to me, this was actually a good thing. It’s always
best to be ahead of the competition, right? Well, with rust, we are
years and years ahead. Just imagine how long it would take the new
screws
on machines from other vendors until they finally manage to rust… And
we can be there today, right now. Now, that’s what I call forward thinking.
April 4th, 2005 at 10:06 EET | Categories: Miscellaneous |
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