The Billy bookcase is perhaps the archetypal Ikea product.
毕利书柜大概是宜家最为典型的产品。
It was dreamed up in 1978 by an Ikea designer called Gillis Lundgren who sketched it on the back of a napkin, worried that he would forget it.
它是由一位宜家的一位名叫吉利斯·伦德格伦的设计员在1978年设计的。吉利斯·伦德格伦生怕会忘记自己的设想，便在一张纸巾上画出了产品的设计图。
Now there are 60-odd million in the world, nearly one for every 100 people - not bad for a humble bookcase.
目前世界上有6千多万个这样的书柜。几乎每100人中就有一个人有一个毕利书柜。对于一个基本款书柜来说，这样的情况算是很不错的了。
In fact, so ubiquitous are they, Bloomberg uses them to compare purchasing power across the world.
事实上，这样的书柜随处可见。彭博社因此还利用它们对世界各地的购买力进行了比较。
According to the Bloomberg Billy Bookcase Index - yes, that's a thing - they cost most in Egypt, just over $100 (£79), whereas in Slovakia you can get them for less than $40 (£31).
根据彭博社关于毕利书柜的报道指出，毕利书柜在埃及的价格最高，超过100美元（约79英镑）。然而在斯洛伐克，只用40美元（约31英镑）就能买到一个毕利书柜。
Every three seconds, another Billy bookcase rolls off the production line of the Gyllensvaans Mobler factory in Kattilstorp, a tiny village in southern Sweden.
每三秒钟就有一个毕利书柜从Gyllensvaans Mobler工厂的生产线上下线。这个工厂坐落在瑞士南部一个叫Kattilstorp的小村庄里。
The factory's couple of hundred employees never actually touch a bookshelf - their job is to tend to the machines, imported from Germany and Japan, which work constantly, to cut, glue, drill and pack the various component parts of the Billy bookcase.
工厂里的两百多名工人不是用手工制造书架的。他们甚至很少会用手触碰书架，他们的工作就是操作那些从德国和日本进口来的机器。这些机器会不停地对书柜的组成元件进行切割，粘黏，钻孔和包装的工作。
In goes particle board by the lorry load, 600 tonnes a day, and out come ready-boxed products, stacked six-by-three on pallets and ready for the lorries.
每天有600吨的颗粒板由货车运进来，运出去的是已经装箱的产品，堆叠在货盘上等待货车的到来。
Framed on the wall in the factory's reception is a typewritten letter - the company's very first furniture-making order from Ikea in 1952.
在工厂接待处的墙上挂着一封打印的信件。这是这个工厂1952年来自宜家的第一个家具制作订单。
Ikea was not, back then, the global behemoth of today, with stores in dozens of countries and turnover in the tens of billions.
当时宜家还不是全球性的大公司，也没有在几十个国家有商场，更没有上百亿的交易额。
Its founder, Ingvar Kamprad, was just 17 when he started the business with a small gift of cash from his father, a reward for trying hard at school despite dyslexia.
它的创办人英瓦尔-坎普拉德在创办宜家的时候才17岁。他用来创办宜家的资金是父亲给他的刻苦学习的奖励。尽管他当时有阅读障碍。
Light bulb moment
灵光一现
By 1952, aged 26, Ingvar already had a 100-page furniture catalogue, but had not yet hit on the idea of flat-packing.
到1952年，当时26岁的英瓦尔已经有一百页纸多的家具商品目录。然而那时的他还没想到平面包装这个点子。
That came a few years later, as he and his company's fourth employee - Gillis Lundgren - were packing a car with furniture for a catalogue photo shoot.
这个点子是他和公司的第四位加入的成员吉利斯·伦德格伦想到的，当时他们正在包装一辆装满要去拍样本目录的家具的车。
'This table takes up too much darn space,' Gillis said. 'We should unscrew the legs.'
“这个桌子占据太大空间了，我们应该把它桌腿的螺丝拧下来，”吉利斯说。
宜家创始人Ingvar Kamprad曾在全球富豪排行榜上排名第八
It was a light bulb moment.
这是一个高光时刻。
.
Kamprad was already obsessed with cutting prices - so obsessed, some manufacturers had started to boycott him. One way to keep prices low is to sell furniture in bits, rather than paying labourers to assemble it.
坎普拉德几乎是对降价着迷了。以至于一些制造商开始联合抵制他。保持低价的一个方法就是将家具以元件的方式卖出去，而不是雇佣工人来进行组装它们。
Even bigger savings come from precisely the problem that inspired Gillis Lundgren: transport.
确切地说来，甚至更大的成本节省是自让一个让Gillis Lundgren能突发奇想的问题：物流运输。
Constant tweaks
不断调整
In 2010, for example, Ikea rethought the design of its Ektorp sofa and made the armrests detachable.
例如，在2010年，宜家重新改变它的爱克托沙发的设计，将沙发扶手改成是可以拆卸的。
That helped halve the size of the packaging, which halved the number of lorries needed to get the sofas from factory to warehouse, and warehouse to shop. And that lopped a seventh off the price.
这使得包装的规模小了一半，运输的卡车数量也减少了一半。这些货车要把沙发从工厂运到货仓，再从货仓运到商店。通过这样的方式，可以节省下七分之一的价格。
Consider another Ikea icon: the Bang mug.
再说到宜家另外一个明星产品: 马克杯
You have probably had a drink from one - with yearly sales reaching 25 million, there are plenty knocking around.
你或许也用过这个杯子喝过水。它的年销售量达到2500万个，大量的产品在市场上出售。
Its design is distinctive - wide at the top, tapering downwards with a small handle, right by the rim - and is not motivated purely by aesthetics.
它的设计是很独特的，开口很广，向下逐渐变小，在边缘还有一个小手柄，这样的设计不仅仅是处于美学的考虑。
Ikea changed the height of the mug when it realised it could make slightly better use of the space in its supplier's kiln, in Romania.
宜家调整了马可杯的高度，是因为他们意识到这个调整可以更好的利用罗马尼亚供应商的烧窑的空间。
And tweaking the handle design made them stack more compactly - more than doubling the number you could fit on a pallet, more than halving the cost of getting them from the kiln in Romania to the shelves in the shop.
调整了这些杯子的手柄之后，它们更容易被放置成整齐的一摞。相比于之前，它们可以被加倍放在一个托盘里。在罗马尼亚的烧窑和商店货架摆放所花的成本也减少了不止一半。
It has been a similar story with the Billy bookcase.
毕利书柜的设计也是如此。
It does not look like it has changed much since 1978, yet it costs 30% less. That is partly due to constant, tiny tweaks in both product and production method.
从外表看起来，和1978年的时候相比，毕利书柜的变化并不是很大。但是它的造价却降低了30%。部分原因是在产品和生产方法上进行了一系列小的调整。
But it is also thanks to sheer economies of scale.
当然这也要归功于它的大规模经济。
Look at Gyllensvaans Mobler: compared to the 1980s, it is making 37 times as many bookcases, yet its number of employees has only doubled. Of course, that is thanks to all those German and Japanese robots.
再来看看Gyllensvaans Mobler 工厂：与80年代相比，现在书柜的生产量是以前的37倍，而工厂里工人的数量却只增加了一倍。当然，这也得归功于工厂里所引进的德国和日本的机器。
Yet a business needs confidence to sink so much money into machinery, especially when it has no other client: pretty much all Gyllensvaans Mobler does is make bookcases for Ikea.
然而一个企业需要自信才敢在器械方面投入如此多的资金。尤其是在没有其它的客户的情况下。Gyllensvaans Mobler 所做的生产工作几乎都是在为宜家制造书柜。
Consider the Bang mug again. Initially, Ikea asked a supplier to price up a million units in the first year. Then it asked: 'What if we commit to five million a year for three years?' That cut the cost by a 10th.
再次回到马克杯。最初，宜家要求一个供应商在第一年时提高一百万个杯子的价格。接下来他们又问：“如果我们承诺为一年500万个，连续三年，会怎么样呢？”这最终为他们节省下十分之一的花费。
Not much, perhaps, but every penny counts. Just ask the famously penny-pinching Ingvar Kamprad: in a rare interview, to mark his 90th birthday, Mr Kamprad said he was wearing clothes he had bought at a flea market.
这个数字不算特别多，但是每一分钱都有价值。节俭吝啬出名的英瓦尔-坎普拉德，在其90岁生日庆典的一次采访表示，他当时身上所穿的衣服是他以前在一个跳蚤市场上买的。
He is said to fly economy and drive an old Volvo. This frugality may help to explain why he is the world's eighth-richest man - although the four decades he spent living in Switzerland to avoid Swedish taxes may also have something to do with it.
据说他会在乘飞机是选择经济舱和出行时乘坐一辆老沃尔沃。这些简朴行为也解释了为什么他能成为世界上第八个最富有的人。虽然也有人认为这和他为了躲避瑞士的税收在瑞典住了40多年也有一定的关系。
Anyone can make shoddy, ugly goods by cutting corners. And anyone can make elegant, sturdy products by throwing money at them.
任何人都可以通过偷工减料来制造劣质，丑陋的商品。任何人也可以通过投入资金来制造雅致的，坚固的商品。
Boringly efficient systems
乏味高效的系统
To get as rich as Mr Kamprad has, you have to make stuff that is both cheap and acceptably good.
想要和英瓦尔-坎普拉一样富有，你必须要制造出物美价廉的商品。
That is what seems to explain the enduring popularity of the Billy.
这似乎也可以用来解释为什么毕利经久不衰。
'Simple, practical and timeless,' is how Gillis Lundgren once described the designs he hoped to create, and the Billy is surprisingly well-accepted by the type of people you might expect to be sniffy about mass-produced MDF.
“简单，实用和耐用，”吉利斯·伦德格伦曾经这样形容他所想要设计得家具。令人惊讶地是，毕利书柜被一种类型的人群所广泛接受。这一类人群是以前在你看来很可能会对批量生产的中密度纤维板嗤之以鼻的。
Sophie Donelson edits the interiors magazine House Beautiful. She told AdWeek the Billy was 'unfussy' and 'unfettered', and 'modern without trying too hard'.
索菲· 唐尼尔森是室内设计杂志 《美丽家居》（House Beautiful）的编辑。她向《广告周刊》（AdWeek）表示，毕利书柜“不过分强调细节，不拘小节，没有过分追求现代化”。
The company celebrated Billy's 30th birthday in 2010 on Australia's Bondi Beach
2010年，公司在澳大利亚的邦迪海滩庆祝毕利书柜面世30周年
Furniture designer Matthew Hilton praises an interesting quality: anonymity. Interiors creative Mat Sanders agrees, declaring that Ikea is 'a great place for basic you can really dress up to make feel high-end'.
家具设计师马修·希尔顿称赞宜家还有一个有趣的品质：单调性。室内设计创意人士马特·桑德斯表示同意，他宣称宜家是“一个提供基本家具的好地方，你可以利用这些基本的东西装饰出高端的感觉。”
The Billy is a bare-bones, functional bookshelf if that is all you want from it, or it is a blank canvas for creativity.
如果你想要一个基本款的书柜，那毕利书柜正是你所需要的，它就像是一张等待创意填充的空白画布。
On ikeahackers.net you will see it repurposed as everything from a wine rack to a room divider to a baby-changing station.
在 ikeahackers.net的网站上，你可以看到毕利书柜有很多用法，比如用作酒架、屏风或者是婴儿换尿布桌。
But business and supply chain nerds do not admire the range for its modernity or flexibility.
但是，企业和供应链并不羡慕它的时尚性和自由性。
They admire it - and Ikea in general - for relentlessly finding ways to cut costs and prices without reducing the quality of the product.
他们赞赏的，总体来说是宜家不懈努力地去寻找降低成本和价格，而又不降低物品质量的行为。
It demonstrates that innovation in the modern economy is not just about snazzy new technologies, but also boringly efficient systems.
它很好的诠释了，在现代经济社会里，创新不仅仅是注重时髦的新科技，而且还注重足够有效的生产系统。
The Billy bookcase isn't innovative in the way that the iPhone is innovative.
毕利书柜所走的创新道路与iPhone所走的创新道路是不同的。
The Billy innovations are about working within the limits of production and logistics, finding tiny ways to shave more off the cost, all while producing something that looks inoffensive and does the job.
毕利书柜是在产品和物流限制范围内进行创新，寻找方法来节省成本，同时生产令人满意而又实用的商品。
编译：hq
编辑：刘秀红
英文来源：BBC
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