Almost certainly made up (or hugely exaggerated). However, if it were true a better title would be: Hierarchies are Dumb at the Top.

Dumb like a fox. That CEO probably issued himself several million worth of stock options.

I wonder if the author is aware that "lixo" means garbage/trash/rubbish in Portuguese.

He is Brazilian.

Reminds me of something my dad taught me: "optimize at the center and innovate at the edges"

Great story. Of course the expensive monitoring system did lead directly to the solution of the problem, so maybe the title should be "Networks are smart but blind at the edges."

Yeah except likely no one ever thought to go and ask the guy on the lines opinion on how to fix the problem in the first place.

Because most of the time asking a hypothetical doesn't produce the same results as an annoying @#$% buzzer.

From a strategy point of view it's a problem of motivation. The moment the people on-site were motivated, even a bit, to solve the problem, the problem was solved.

I really like this story.

It shows that simplicity rules and that simplicity often comes out of simple a situation not considered by the big planners.

Sometimes innovation lies in what you did not build, instead of what you did.

Compare to C++ templates, Java generics, etc. vs duck typing.