Achieving limited success is often the result of making a poor decision at a critical moment. Few people in the history of North American manufacturing knew this better than P.L Robertson, the Canadian inventor of the Robertson square-drive screw and screwdriver.
In 1908, the year Robertson introduced his inventions, Ford Motor Co. introduced the Model T. Initially, the automobile was assembled using slotted-head screws. A couple years later, though, Henry Ford tried the Robertson screws and realized they saved nearly 2 hours in assembly time for each car because the square drive prevented the screwdriver from slipping out during installation.