Soap Case Study

One of the most memorable case studies on Japanese 

management was the case of the empty soap box, which 

happened in one of Japan’s biggest cosmetics 

companies. The company received a complaint that a 

consumer had bought a soap box that was empty.

Immediately the authorities isolated the problem to the 

assembly line, which transported all the packaged boxes 

of soap to the delivery department. For some reason, 

one soap box went through the assembly line empty.

Management asked its engineers to solve the problem. 

Post-haste, the engineers worked hard to devise an X-

ray machine with higher solution monitors manned by 

two people to watch all the soap boxes that passed 

through the line to make sure they were not empty.

No doubt, they worked hard and they worked fast but 

they spent whoopee amount to do so.

But when a workman was posed with the same problem, 

did not get into complications of X-rays, etc but instead 

came out with another solution.

He bought a strong industrial electric fan and pointed it 

at the assembly line. He switched the fan on, and as 

each soap box passed the fan, it simply blew the empty 

boxes out of the line.

Moral of the story: Always look for simple solutions. 

Devise the simplest possible solution that solves the 

problem. So, learn to focus on solutions not on 

problems. “If you look at what you do not have in life, 

you don’t have anything; if you look at what you have in 

life, you have everything”