Of Bird Droppings and Car Paint top
An Australian auto manufacturer where began experiencing increasing damage to the cars. Until recently the cars were shipped almost as soon as they came off the line. Now because of slow sales they remain on a lot outdoors and experience damage due to bird droppings. The car polish currently used does not remove the stains completely, and the stains are still visible after multiple buffings.
To tackle this problem, the manager assigns the following task to his technical specialist:
Find a better car polish that can remove the stains caused by bird droppings.
After collecting responses and observations, it was found that that this problem seems to occur more often on hot sunny days. To follow up on that observation, the specialist decides to go online and search for the composition of bird droppings and car paint. Upon initial research, he learns that birds excrete uric acid in their droppings. One of his colleagues remembers that acids are very corrosive and calls an old friend who majored in Material Science.
The material science friend tells him that it is difficult to develop a car paint to completely prevent the bird droppings from damaging the car, and that removing it is even tougher. After analyzing the information collected, they decide that the real problem may not be related to the kind of car polish used, but instead the fact that the sun and heat speed up the damage of car paint from uric acid.