Thought of the Day - Process Improvements I Love To Hate

There is one process improvement in particular that i love to hate.

Anyone who has stayed in a Travel Inn or similar budget hotel recently has probably noticed the increase in Lux Shower Gel/Shampoo bottles in place of traditional soap and shampoo. If you weren't a process engineer you might wonder why. The simple reason is cost reduction, how many barely used bars of soap and mini-bottles of shampoo do you think are thrown out each year? So something that you don't have to replace after every guest is quite a big saving, huge infact, probably millions of pounds a year, especially for a hotel chain as big as Travel Inn. It is also good for the environment, the waste generated from individually packaged soap and shampoo must be orders of magnitude more than large bottles of Lux. Finally who wants to steal a huge bottle of shower gel that only fits in a mounted holder, so there must be a significant reduction in theft too.

Unfortunately i really really hate shower gel, i always feel greasy after i use it and never quite feel clean. So on a personal level i hate it but on a technical level its is a great process improvement and i only wish i had thought of it first.