In 1985 product developers at Matsushita Electric Company were trying to develop a home bread-making machine. "But they were having trouble getting the machine to knead dough correctly. Despite their efforts, the crust of the bread came out overcooked while the inside was hardly done at all. Employees exhaustively analyzed the problem. They even compared X-rays of dough kneaded by the machine and dough kneaded by professional bakers.
But they were unable to obtain any meaningful data.
"Finally, software developer Ikuko Tanaka proposed a creative solution. The Osaka International Hotel had a reputation for making the best bread in Osaka. Why not use it as a model? Tanaka trained with the hotel's head baker to study his kneading technique. She observed that the baker had a distinctive way of stretching the dough. To imitate that, the engineers added special ribs inside the machine and developed a unique 'twist dough'
method. In its first year on the market, their bread-making machine set a record for sales of a new kitchen appliance."
Some things can't be learned in a lab or with an X-ray machine. Some things one can only learn by spending time with someone else.
