Citations › Citation ID: 100

C100. BOOK: David C. Robertson, Brick by Brick: How LEGO Rewrote the Rules of Innovation and Conquered the Global Toy Industry (Crown, 2013), p. 116.

At the same time, designers had free rein to create, so long as they kept within the FMC’s parameters. In a very real sense, they were forced to innovate inside the box. It was expected that designers would devise pieces that required new molds, since those elements would make, say, a LEGO City police station fresh and exciting. But such specialized pieces had to be really special—something that would light up the entire set. At the same time, the FMC frame ensured that designers would tamp down the desire to create lots of cool-for-cool’s-sake pieces and instead find creative ways to make more out of universal pieces. As a result, on average, at least 70 percent of every LEGO set, whether it’s a LEGO City box or a new play theme such as Ninjago, is now made up of standard, universal bricks. Or to put it another way, 70 percent of the bricks in a City line are used in radically different sets such as Ninjago, and vice versa. This allows LEGO to reap enormous cost savings by not having to produce more molds for “uncommon” elements.

After the belt-tightening in 2004, designers were pressured to keep specialized parts to a minimum, with "70 percent of the bricks" in a given set being "universal pieces" which are used across many themes.