The lesson: Before adding resources, subtract unnecessary steps.
Tom’s most famous adventure came at the Central Warehouse. Goods arrived in random order, and workers spent 40% of their time walking from aisle to aisle. Management wanted a conveyor belt system—$2 million.
Tom’s first assignment was the Shipping Department. Every day, a mountain of paper forms—requests, approvals, duplicates—grew on Ms. Crabapple’s desk. By Thursday, she couldn’t find her coffee mug. By Friday, she had declared “thermonuclear war on filing cabinets.”
He spent a week mapping every signature, every stamp, every carbon copy. Then he built a simple digital form with automated routing. No more paper. No more lost forms. Ms. Crabapple found her mug—and her weekends.
“Why print at all?” he asked.
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