While working at IBM years ago, I participated in some of the suggestion programs that the company provided. Safety related suggestions that were adopted were rewarded with some fixed amount, perhaps it was $500 (I don't remember the exact amount). Suggestions that saved the company money were also rewarded. The reward was something like 10% of the company's first year savings.
Suggestions that saved a couple of dollars on the packaging of PC could, for example, be worth quite a bit. The best suggestion I heard of was made by a co-worker (before I worked at IBM). He was the first to suggest that bar codes be used on IBM's ubiquitous inventory tags. Since everything in the company, like desks, monitors, keyboards, etc. had inventory tags it would have been a huge labor saving suggestion during the annual inventory of everything.
Unfortunately, IBM didn't use the suggestion for a couple of years and according to the program's guidelines my friend wasn't eligible for a financial reward when the idea was actually adopted.
I happened to read recently that the Romans stamped lead pipes with inscriptions so they could track, I guess, if a pipe was authorized or stealing water.
Suggestions that saved a couple of dollars on the packaging of PC could, for example, be worth quite a bit. The best suggestion I heard of was made by a co-worker (before I worked at IBM). He was the first to suggest that bar codes be used on IBM's ubiquitous inventory tags. Since everything in the company, like desks, monitors, keyboards, etc. had inventory tags it would have been a huge labor saving suggestion during the annual inventory of everything.
Unfortunately, IBM didn't use the suggestion for a couple of years and according to the program's guidelines my friend wasn't eligible for a financial reward when the idea was actually adopted.