“Our sales are getting lower and lower. I know that everyone here are aware of that. That’s why I called for this meeting.” After a pregnant pause, Himchan continued. “So, I hope you’re all prepared with your recommendations on how to solve this problem.” He glanced all over the persons seated around the conference table. Then his eyes stopped at Yongguk. “Mr. Bang, we will start with yours.”

Yongguk stood in front and started his presentation. “The biggest factor that affects our sales is our problem with the designing production lines. Because it is in there that most of our complains come from. Most of them is about the empty boxes that we ship without the pack of powdered milk inside.”

“Please hurry up and present your solution. I’m not here to listen to your ideals.” Himchan, being the perfect CEO that he is, interjected.

“I’m sorry sir.” He bowed and continued. “So, people in this department says that it is very difficult to have everything happen with timing so precise that will make every single unit perfect all the time. So, what I’m saying is, we need to do quality assurance check across the production line so that our customers won’t get frustrated and end up buying from another company.”

“Is that everything that you can say?” Himchan again.

“Yes sir.”

“That’s a very stupid idea. I was expecting some high-tech machines to be involved. Yours was very simple. It’s immediately discarded.” He said while doing a wave motion using his hands.

Yongguk sat down on his chair with a disappointed face.

Mr. Kim once again scanned the room.

“It’s your turn Mr. Yoo.”

Youngjae immediately stood and walked in front.

After several minutes of his explanation about something that blinks and beeps, the CEO was contented and he approved the recommended project of Mr. Yoo.

The next day, they started to work on the project. They selected third parties and other RFP’s. They also allocated a budget of $5 million for the said project. And it will be realized in just two months.

The two months went by very fast and the machine was delivered. Everybody felt amazing. They don’t have to worry about the problem of having empty boxes of powdered milk anymore. The said machine would blink three times and will beep five times every time a box would pass by it weighing less than it normally would. The production line would stop and someone will get the certain box out of the line and would press a button to restart again.

It’s been already three months since the machine was installed so the CEO, Mr. Kim decided to have a look at the ROI (Return of Investment) of the project. The result was beyond amazing. Not even a single empty box was ever shipped out. The complaints of the customers dropped and the company is beginning to gain market share.

“The $5 million we spent on the machine paid off very well.” Himchan exclaimed before looking again at the other statistics that were included in the report.

He discovered yet another result. The number of the defects received by the machine after a week of use was ZERO.

“How could this be?” he muttered to himself before calling his secretary. “Mr. Moon. Come into my office right away.”

After a minute, “You called for me sir?”

“Who else? I’m filing a bug against this report.” He showed the reports to Jongup. The latter picked it up reluctantly.

“What do I do with these sir?” he asked while holding the papers with both his hands.

“I want you to contact external adviser engineers and have these reports investigated. I’m not convinced that these are all true.”

“Is that all sir?”

“Yes. You can go now.”

A week passed and the result of the investigation came. It was negative. The reports that was first submitted were indeed correct. The machine haven’t received any defective boxes because all of the boxes that comes into the machine were all perfect.

Feeling some infidelity, Himchan visited the factory in secret. He walked up to the part of the conveyor line where the machine was installed.

There he found something out of place. A few feet just before the machine, stood a $50 fan. Blowing away all of the empty boxes off the belt. He was greatly puzzled so he turned to question one of the workers. “Who placed that fan here?”

A very tall boy with a baby face answered. “Daehyun. Said he was tired of walking over the machine every time it flashes and beeps. Said he can’t sleep well.” The boy didn’t even recognize the CEO as he was pointing to a sleeping Daehyun inside a booth.