We’re in charge of merchandising and display for a chain of stores here, so let’s make an executive decision to replace our expensive old wooden shelving with a cheaper new wire grid system. The difference in cost goes directly to the bottom line. There. Done. Next? What? Oh. Well, look at that. Yikes. Who knew? The wire shelving seemed perfectly beautiful and functional—until actual product was placed on it. At that point (or minutes after, I should say) the main drawback to the wire grid became clear: Every time a customer touches something, it tilts. Sometimes, to be honest, nobody touches a thing and it tilts. I think the damn boxes may be tilting each other. And you look down the long expanse of wire grids and every fourth or fifth thing has tipped, and it looks like hell, I’ll be the first to agree, so somebody needs to go straighten it. The boys over in Operations are screaming like wet chimps: We’re now paying people $8.00 an hour to straighten boxes. On a busy Saturday night, as the lines grow long, we’re talking an hour or more per store of wasted labor.
