Samsung cut DRAM cycle time from 80+ days to under 30 with SLIM
WIP targets plus scheduling heuristics shortened Samsung's DRAM cycle time and captured about $1B in sales.
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1,000 PUBLISHED CASES · REGULARLY UPDATEDPhilips sold Schiphol light as a service instead of light fixtures
At Schiphol, Philips owns the LED fixtures while the airport pays for the light it uses — cutting electricity use ~50% and making recycling Philips' job.
Read the caseP&G modeled its whole North American supply network and cut plants ~20%
One integer-programming + GIS model of sourcing and distribution trimmed P&G's North American plants ~20%, saving $200M+ a year.
Read the caseMIDI won by giving every synth one common serial voice - an open standard.
Dave Smith's Universal Synthesizer Interface became a simple, royalty-free serial spec that competing firms published, so any keyboard could drive any synth.
Read the caseMaersk cut fuel 30% by slowing its container ships to clipper speed
When fuel costs bit, the world's biggest line slowed ships and saved over £65 million.
Read the caseIntel blended chip design and supply chain, netting $25.4B since 2009
Intel's product complexity was exploding; it unified design alternatives with supply-chain planning and grew revenue $1.9B/yr while cutting cost $1.5B/yr.
Read the caseIKEA Taiwan sorted its catalogue by price and lifted online sales 123%
IKEA Taiwan made page number equal price, turning cheap small goods from afterthoughts into the whole shopping path.
Read the caseGoogle shifted flexible compute across time and place to chase clean energy
Google's carbon-intelligent computing delays and relocates non-urgent workloads so its data centers run more on carbon-free power.
Read the caseThe Fed's standing repo facility pre-commits a backstop that caps money-market rate spikes
After the 2019 repo rate spike, the Fed promised to lend cash against Treasuries at a fixed rate every day, so dealers never face a panic.
Read the caseCostco sells off the pallet, so the warehouse is the store
Costco runs every SKU as a full 40x48-inch pallet on the floor, cutting the handling between truck and shelf to near zero.
Read the caseContinental's CrewSolver reassigns crews in minutes during disruption
When storms knock crews out of position, Continental's optimizer rebuilds the whole crew plan near-optimally, saving about $40M a year in major disruptions.
Read the caseBank of England swapped frozen mortgages for gilts and kept the risk with banks
The 2008 Special Liquidity Scheme let banks swap legacy mortgage assets for Treasury bills for up to three years — liquidity restored, losses kept.
Read the caseAmrut launched India's first single malt in Glasgow before selling it at home
Unable to sell 'Indian whisky' as premium at home, Amrut debuted its single malt in Scotland in 2004 — blind tastings did the convincing.
Read the caseAmazon's DSP program turned last-mile delivery into 40-van small businesses
Amazon's 2018 DSP program lets vetted entrepreneurs run local delivery networks of up to 40 Prime-branded vans for a $10,000 start.
Read the caseEthiopian Airlines tripled revenue in five years running the state carrier commercially
State-owned but commercially run, Ethiopian Airlines set a five-year target to lift turnover from $400m to $1b — and hit $1.3b by 2010.
Read the caseWaymo hid robotaxi ads inside fortune cookies at San Francisco restaurants
To make 'the future is here' literal, Waymo slipped its app QR code into fortune cookies across San Francisco — and one diner's tweet did the rest.
Read the caseAmazon paid USPS to deliver on Sundays, using routes the post office already ran
In November 2013 USPS began delivering Amazon parcels on Sundays with no new hires and no overtime, renting its idle day to e-commerce.
Read the caseRBI's one-QR mandate made any app pay at any shop and UPI went exponential
When proprietary QR codes fragmented India's shops, RBI forced one interoperable standard — QR codes doubled and UPI hit 16.7bn monthly transactions.
Read the caseTimes of India made twisting open a plastic bottle look like strangling a baby seal
The Times of India's 'Seal Alarm' showed sea creatures squeezed like plastic bottles, turning every cracked bottle seal into an alarm for marine life.
Read the caseTide launched Oxi Boost by interviewing the extras Marvel heroes keep staining
To prove its strongest stain fighter, Tide ignored Marvel's heroes and cast the real background extras who clean up their messes across 36 films.
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