The | Adventures Of Tom Xxxl

The lesson: Before adding resources, subtract unnecessary steps.

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. the adventures of tom xxxl

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.” No more paper

Next, employees in the West Tower complained about the elevator. “It’s ancient,” they grumbled. “Replace it.” The estimated cost: $250,000 and six weeks of stairs. Crabapple found her mug—and her weekends

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 never became a vice president. He never wrote a bestselling book. But in five years, he saved his company over $12 million without a single layoff or a single new machine. He just asked smaller questions: Why do we do this? What if we stopped? What’s really in the way?