This was posted today and it is funny. However, it brings back one of my biggest embarrassments in business.
I am a packaging engineer. My special niche is form fill and seal packaging. My company packaged coupons and toys for years that went into dog food, packaged meats, frozen foods and cereals. One of the issues in the industry was that the packages contain excess air. So much so they were referred to as "pillow packs" by the entire industry.
The devices and technologies to "flatten" these pillow pack packages were complicated, inadequate, and generally subject to failure. Lots of moving parts, chambers that had to be airtight and costing as much as $15k to install on machines that normally cost $40 grand to begin with.
I was installing some bag filling lines for Ralston and the plant manager said if I could solve the issue, I would get his business. My head mechanic and I put our heads together and after about 3 months, a dozen or so attempts, all lubricated with essential spirits (Sam Adams and Dewars) we designed and patented a device with no moving parts, operator did nothing but turn it on. Simple, effective, and cheap. They drew 20 hg per package and we could run our lines at their intended design speeds of 200PPM
We could build them for less the $100.00.
However, before we would sell any, we put them on our own 8 lines to prove their viability. This brought us so much business we decided not to sell any units thus avoiding competition with our own product.
Business boomed. But then came the internet and out of favor, coupons. Our bread and butter gone overnight.
And now the whole point of my longstory.....;
SO, I said to the team "how about we look at other industries for using our product to make a soft vacuum pack of their goods."
Everybody with flow wrapping wanted our product. It'll be easy to sell. Why not.
So, I went to the Lays Potato chip plant to talk to engineering about my "miracle" invention. And that's when, to my great embarrassment, I found out why the packages have so much air in them.
"To keep the chips from breaking."
You know what this dumb@ss smarty pants retorted?
"That's not working is it?
That, was 24 years ago. Haven't been invited back since