Good Engineering

This is from an article in the Wall Street Journal, Tuesday July 22, 1997, about the Dutch firm that has been hired to manage the International Arrivals Building at New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport.

The tile under the urinals in the Arrivals Building has that familiar lemony tinge; rubber soles stick to it. Over in Amsterdam, the tile under Schiphol’s urinals would pass inspection in an operating room. But nobody notices.

What everybody does notice is that each urinal has a fly in it. Look harder, and the fly turns into the black outline of a fly, etched into the porcelain.

“It improves the aim,” says Aad Kieboom. “If a man sees a fly, he aims at it.”

Mr. Kieboom, an economist, directs Schiphol’s own building expansion. His staff conducted fly-in-urinal trials and found that etchings reduce spillage by 80%. The Dutch will transfer the technology to New York.

“We will put flies in the urinals — yes,” Jan Jansen says in a back office at the Arrivals Building. He is the new Dutch general manager, the boss as of noon today. “It gives a guy something to think about. That’s the perfect example of process control.”

Tags: Engineering, fly-in-urinal, urinals

Category: Adult Jokes