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I'd be delighted to receive other commercial product examples. Please feel free to send Suggestions, Additions, Corrections, & Comments. 

When the forces of commercial self-interest and of dental hygiene combine, how can it not lead to mistake-proofing?  This toothbrush has colored bristles that become clear at the tips of the bristles through use. When it starts to look like the brush on the left, it is time to buy a new toothbrush.  Planned obsolescence at its best.

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A company called Metric Blue offers metric bolts tinted blue.  Why blue? So that when you have mixed metric and inch-series parts and fasteners it is easier to determine which standard you are working with. Company literature says, “by differentiating the metric fasteners (and tools) through our "blue" coating,  we've eliminated the risk of failure or accidents due to mismatched components.”

60.

At Boy Scout Camp, some young men get a little carried away dispensing the toilet paper. Perhaps it is their digestive system’s response to the change in diet at the mess hall, or perhaps it is just for fun. These excesses sometimes lead to clogs the plumbing, other times the toilet paper ends up wet on the floor.  One attempt to reduce these occurences is a toilet paper dispenser that only makes one rotation at a time.  In the photo, the upper arrow shows a steel pin that hits the cam, identified by the lower arrow.  This prevents some of the “freewheeling” behavior some scouts may have on their first few occassions away from home.

Mistake-proofing for tailgaters. And while we are on the subject of road markings, this is one of my favorites (partly because I suspect the effort is entirely futile). A section of Route 220 in central Pennsylvania between Port Matilda and Bald Eagle (the missing link in I-99) offers accidents galore. It is heavily patrolled by the Police and has lots of signage to help motorist drive safely. But this sign is by far the most novel, because it provides instructions on using some unique markings on the road.  Large white dots are spaced on the road so that if a motorist can see two of them they are not following too close (tail-gating).

63.

Mistake-proofing for Cows? Perhaps this is not classical example of mistake-proofing but I think it still counts. Cows cannot cross but cars and trucks can. The western US also has examples where the bars are just paint stripes on the pavement; but by all accounts, they are supposed to work.

64a.

Back before MP3’s, CD’s, cassettes, or even 8-tracks, there was an audio storage medium known as a record. Records were played on a “turntable” as shown above. High fidelty audio required that the rate of revolution of the turntable be carefully callibrated.  This was accomplished using a strobe light (shown as a red glow in the photos) and precisely spaced notched rings around the circumference of the turntable.  if the notched ring appeared stationary, then the rotation speed was correct. Multiple rings allowed for callibration at the various speeds. Thirty-three and a third, 45, and 78 RPM were common “formats” for this now antique “storage medium.”

The notched rings provided a simple visual check of proper machine function.

64b.

Some crafts people and artists in the process of making wooden bowls on a lathe utilize the same concept. They use a strobe light to allow the wood (which is otherwise a spinning blur as shown in the photo) to appear stationary, or with an apparent rotation that is much slower than the actual RPMs. This allows the artist to see the patterns in the wood clearly.

64c.

W. E. Johns reports using the flicker of a flurescent light to creat a tachometer for his lathe

The photo above left shows the markings in the lathe chuck (the part that holds and spind the wood). the photo above right shows the lathe running at 150 revolutions per minute. A full description is available at www.gizmology.net/lathetach.htm

64d.

The same concept is utilized in timing light used to tune-up automobile ignition systems.

Written permission to use these examples can be obtained by writing a short request with your name and company affiliation. Generally, I am willing to extended permission free of charge, if you will include a reference to mistakeproofing.com in your  document or presentation.

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