Page 71 - 100 Great Business Ideas: From Leading Companies Around the World (100 Great Ideas)

FEDERAL EXPRESS

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Hwy also worked with other sorting departments to in-
crease their quality control efforts, thereby reducing the
number of packages sent to the nightly minisort. Finally, a
"traffic cop" was appointed to direct the tractors carrying
sorted packages to the right planes.

The results were impressive. The time spent on minisort
dropped from more than an hour a night to 38 minutes.
In one year, the number of packages missing their flights
fell to about 1,800 a month. The firm saved $938,000 in
eighteen months. "It seems so simple," Washington ob-
serves, "but it wasn't. The hardest part was selling it to
everyone." The team members were pleased with their
solutions, even though what they proposed ended up
costing each of them about $50 a week in lost wages be-
cause their work hours were reduced.

Source: Martha T. Moore, "Sorting Out a Mess," LISA Today (April 10, 1992), F. 5B.

It's obvious that your responses to the second set of assump-
tions will differ from your responses to the first set. What
new solutions do you come up with? In what ways can these
be applied to the original problem?

Give it a try.

ANALYZING THE ENVIRONMENT,
RECOGNIZING AND
IDENTIFYING THE PROBLEM,
& MAKING ASSUMPTIONS

The techniques listed in this chapter are some of the more
creative approaches to these three stages of problem solv-
ing. Many are specifically designed to enhance creativity in
these stages. The importance of creative activity in these
stages is demonstrated by the Federal Express example de-
scribed in The Innovative Edge in Action 3.2.

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