English Hacking

오늘은 어제에 이어지는 이야기입니다. 사실, 오늘의 이 이야기가 같이 나누고 싶은 이야기였는데, 아무런 맥락 없이 던져지면 너무 뜬금없다고 할 수도 있을 것 같아서 어제 미리 배경설명을 드렸달까요…

At first glance, such issues may sound unrealistic, a little like the intellectual games with which the philosophers of ancient Greece once amused themselves. But it is precisely by asking questions like these – challenges to the fundamental commonsense premises of business activity – that many outstandingly successful companies have managed to break out of seemingly hopeless competitive stalemates. Consider these examples:
The blankets produced by an electrical appliance manufacturer carried a warning: “Do not fold or lie on this blanket.” One of the company’s engineers wondered why no one had designed a blanket that was safe to sleep on while it was in operation. The engineer’s questioning resulted in the production of an electric underblanket that was not only safe to sleep on while in operation but much more efficient. Being insulated by the other bedclothes, it wasted far less energy than conventional electric blankets, which dissipate half their heat directly into the air.
A camera manufacturer wondered why a camera couldn’t have a built-in flash that would spare users the trouble of finding and fixing an attachment. To ask the question was to answer it. The company proceeded to design a 35mm camera with built-in flash. It was an enormous success, sweeping the Japanese medium-price lens-shutter market. Likewise, a camera company that questioned why exposed film so often came back without any pictures taken discovered that about 50 percent of Japanese women either couldn’t load the film properly or were afraid to try. As a result it introduced an automatic film-loading mechanism that has eliminated the need to insert the end of the perforated film into a reel.
Mr. Taiichi Ohno of Toyota Motor Company wondered why it should be necessary stockpile large quantities of components for production. As a result of his question, the company introduced a computer-based system that sends orders to its vendors, lists them in order of production, and gives the component suppliers – two or three weeks in advance – a production plan specifying type, quantity, delivery time, and order of delivery. A reminder, called kanban, is then circulated to suppliers so that they can deliver on time to meet the company’s automotive assembly schedule. The conveyor belt acts as a buffer, and the suppliers hold the stocks of components they have produced right up to the time they are wanted on the main assembly line.
The key to this “just-in-time production” system is that the suppliers also use it to synchronize with final assembly production, thus eliminating work in process. And if anything happens to halt production on the main assembly line, the general manager is in a position to bring tremendous pressure on the supplier concerned to remedy the problem as swiftly as possible.
A commercial truck distributor noticed that his salespeople, like most others in the industry, were making most of their calls between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. each day. He wondered whether orders peaked during that part of the afternoon, and he asked for a quick analysis. It showed that the period from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. was precisely when the salespeople’s success rate (the ratio of sales to calls) was at its lowest. Having established this point, management very sensibly relaxed its tight control on the salespeople’s time, encouraging them to go straight to their territories instead of reporting to the office in the morning, and to take their free time in the afternoon. The end result: a significant share improvement for the company. (The Mind of the Strategist, pp. 59 – 60)

혁신이란 바로 이런 것이라고 저자는 말합니다. 저자가 말하는 혁신이라는게 연구실에서 만들어지는 것이라기보다는, 어떤 의미에서는 전략가의 문제의식을 출발점으로 하여 “추구”되어지는 거라는 거죠. 이미 디지털 시대로 접어든 이때 카메라의 예는 좀 구닥다리로 보일 수 있지만, 그거야 뭐…

“돈이 되는” 혁신이라는 것은 “과학사를 새로 쓰는” 혁신과는 분명히 다를 것입니다. 스티브 잡스는 아마 죽었다 깨어나도 노벨상을 받지 못할 거라는 거죠. 회사에서의 혁신이라는 것은 따지고 보면 하나의 문제의식을 끈질기게, 고집스럽게 밀고 나가는 결과라는 거구요. 흥미로운 사례들이죠.