Quantas vezes?

Um exemplo concreto deste postal "Prisioneiros das rotinas..." neste artigo "The story of the invention that could revolutionize batteries—and maybe American manufacturing as well". Meio incrédulo dei comigo a ler:

"The reason battery factories are so huge ... goes back to a chance event at the birth of lithium ion.
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But Sony also had to quickly figure out how to manufacture this new kind of battery on a commercial scale. Providence stepped in: As it happened, increasingly popular compact discs were beginning to erode the market for cassette tapes, of which Sony was also a major manufacturer. The tapes were made on long manufacturing lines that coated a film with a magnetic slurry, dried it, cut it into long strips, and rolled it up. Looking around the company, Sony’s lithium-ion managers now noticed much of this equipment, and its technicians, standing idle.
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It turned out that the very same equipment could also be used for making lithium-ion batteries. These too could be made by coating a slurry on to a film, then drying and cutting it. In this case the result isn’t magnetic tape, but battery electrodes.
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This equipment, and those technicians, became the backbone of the world’s first lithium-ion battery manufacturing plant, and the model for how they have been made ever since. Today, factories operating on identical principles are turning out every commercial lithium-ion battery on the planet."

Interessante como nunca ninguém questionou a dimensão das fábricas, os pressupostos, apesar das centenas de milhões de dólares, até arrepia.
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Quantas vezes isto acontece na vida das empresas?
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BTW, ao ler a parte final do artigo:

"In a new report, McKinsey describes a broad new age of manufacturing that it calls Industry 4.0. The consulting firm says the changes under way are affecting most businesses. They are probably not “another industrial revolution,” it says, but together, there is “strong potential to change the way factories work.”
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For decades, the US has watched its bedrock manufacturing industries wither  away, as they’ve instead grown thick in Japan, in South Korea, in China, Taiwan and elsewhere in Asia. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the US lost about 5 million manufacturing jobs just from 1997 to 2014. This includes the production of lithium-ion batteries, which, though invented by Americans, were commercialized in Japan and later South Korea and China.
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So Chiang’s innovation could be a poster-child for a new strain of thinking in the US. This says that, while such industries are not likely to return from Asia, the US can possibly reinvent how they manufacture. The country wouldn’t take back nearly as many jobs as it has lost. But there could be large profits, as the country once again moves a step ahead in crucial areas of technology."

Não pude deixar de recordar "Mais especulações"