After you drive your car at night, your windshield is often coated with remains of bugs.  Annoying, to be sure, but it doesn’t seem to warrant attention of serious science.  

But it does.  Not for car windshields, rather for the same problem on airline wings.  Those little critters increase the drag and reduce the fuel efficiency of the plane.  Consequently, NASA and Boeing, serious scientists to be sure, are testing non-stick wing components to thwart the bug problem.

Their hope is to reduce fuel consumption by 0.5%, which equates to $240 million/year for the U.S. airline industry.

What problem does your organization have that is equivalent to pesky bugs?  It may not seem like anything big when taken in isolation, but can add up to significant costs either in money or time as an aggregate.  

Chances are good that you have already implemented the big efficiencies and are now faced with the hard work of finding incremental gains that matter.  Don’t let the solution fly right by you without considering it.

— beth triplett
leadershipdots.blogspot.com
@leadershipdots
leadershipdots@gmail.com


Source:  Crackle, pop.  Squished bugs give airlines gas pains by Bart Jansen in USAToday, July 23, 2015, p. 1A.

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