1 Per Cento - The Power of Marginal Gains
A wise man once instructed, while glaring at his disciples unblinkingly (and in a gravelly, poised tone):
"You're never staying the same: If you're not getting better, you're getting worse. Take every day as an opportunity to GET BETTER."
Bob Guyer, my high school football coach, gave a lot of other advice too:
"Find a way to make a contribution."
"You should have no doubt in your minds what you're about to do tonight."
"I want you to explode out of your stance, like your head looks like it's about to explode out of its helmet!"
But the man wasn't wrong! Even though he was self-proclaimed "not a Mathmagician".
The results from improving just 1% a day are absolutely staggering.
If you can manage to improve any skill by a mere 1% a day, you will be 37 TIMES better at it in 1 year. The theory originates from Sir Dave Brailsford's winning strategy of cumulative small improvements which took the British cycling team from non-competitors, to winning Olympic Gold medals.
He called it "The Aggregation of Marginal Gains".
Engineers may know this as Kaizen or Continuous Improvement. Whether you're truly improving by exactly 1% every single day isn't the point - it's a philosophy of forward progress towards a worth goal.
At TRO designs, we're not just sitting on our culos.
Tiny improvements are being added to our components, typically before our next production run.
Something as small as changing the pin material for our V2 oil filter cover. We've only had positive responses to this part, but it wasn't as good as it could be. After using the pin to remove the cover, we noticed the relatively soft 18-8 Stainless Steel had been slightly indented by the pliers' jaws.
The switch to a harder Stainless alloy (416) has eliminated it. It's a little more expensive, but it's on the path to Motorcycling Excellence.
The V4 cover also had related modifications done. Under very hard sideways force (not typical) during oil filter cover removal, the quick release pin could unlock itself. Having that possibility wasn't good enough for us.
We altered the pin holes with a combination of increased chamfers to 60° and deepened them, effectively lowering the engagement length of the pin.
Result? The pin's detent ball has more clearance and more fully engages the locking mechanism. There's now a more satisfying "click" on inserting the quick release pin, and it doesn't budge. Yet it isn't loose, the pin handle still won't rotate. It's a quality part that belongs on Ducati Motorcycles.