Tuesday's Wall Street Journal has an article about the Dutch takeover
of JFK airport's International Arrivals building. The Dutch have some
interesting ideas on how to clean it up:
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%.
"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."
His New York public relations attendant titters. "Fine, laugh at me,"
Mr. Jansen says. "It works."