When I worked in manufacturing we would hire, every year, a summer engineer to the same task: Investigate scrap and how to reduce it. The engineers all came up with the same set of recommendations, most of which were either impractical or not cost justified. Finally I asked my boss why we did this every year. He told me that even though they didn’t produce results directly, the mere fact that someone was checking and investigating reduced scrap by 10% or more for the three months of their assignment and that extended for 3-4 months after they left. Those engineers paid for themselves three to five times over, every year.
It is good to remember this "placebo" effect when we examine the results of the recently released independent study conducted by Dr. Bill Hardgrave of the University of Arkansas.
