May 26th 1997

The 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."