The sucess

The bricks that stick together — the third secret of LEGO’s success

The kids were happy building something with their own hands and very proud to show their constructions to their parents. But their joy wouldn’t last — the constructions were fragile, falling apart at the slightest touch like a card castle.

What if bricks could stick together? Godtfried, Ole’s son asks himself.

He goes back to the drawing board and in 1958, he patents the iconic LEGO brick with tubes inside which makes bricks stick together.

From this moment on, LEGO becomes one of the largest toymakers in the world.

Cutting out distribution to some of the smaller retailers, the company is able to reduce fulfillment costs and eliminate orders that consist of less than a full carton of bricks.  Additionally, the company works closely with large retailers on demand forecasting, inventory management and product customization.

LEGO prides itself on creating unique ways to tap into the needs of its customer through advances in field research and design thinking.  In an environment where mistakes can be made cheaply and there are no cost or feasibility constraints, a team called the Future Lab is tasked with generating interesting concepts for the company, even though many of them never end up getting launched.

  Yet, after the idea generation phase, the company ensures that costs of innovation are clear to designers.  LEGO has devised rules regarding the creation of new colors, shapes and ordering of new materials.  Lesson learned: no boundaries should be placed on idea generation, but strict guidelines limit the chances of creating loss leading toys.