Anatomy of an expensive toilet soap bar

One basic rule in quality and productivity improvement is that management must listen to all employee ideas, even those that appear absurd at first glance.

- REY ELBO

One basic rule in quality and productivity improvement is that management must listen to all employee ideas, even those that appear absurd at first glance.

Try it once or twice. If an absurd idea solves a problem, then it’s not absurd. It’s as simple as that. This came to me again when I talked to a production manager of a Filipino-owned factory in Laguna.

Believe it or not! They were struggling with how to solve the “high cost” of providing regular-size bar soaps for its ten toilets.

The average cost is $2,500 per year. It may not be a costly item to some people, but for this factory, it’s a big deal when they’re high in their kaizen program.

The soaps are being supplied by a cooperative owned and managed by the workers’ parents and spouses as part of the factory’s community relations program. The kaizen manager thinks it’s too much to spend that much and vowed to solve it as part of their mandate to eliminate all types of waste – big or small. However, department managers are divided on how to solve the issue. They claimed that whatever the cost favors the cooperative as it ultimately benefits its members – all employees and their families.

The kaizen manager and other managers rejected the argument. They claimed that whatever benefit that goes to the cooperative should not result in giving undue disadvantage to the factory. “Fair is fair,” they chorused.