The holidays are here! Halls are getting decked with boughs of holly, partridges are being stuffed into pear trees (what, that’s not a thing?), and, of course, bells are jingling while people take sleigh rides in winter wonderlands. There’s a rush to stores both physical and digital to get the gifts on the wishlists of our loved ones or Secret Santa work acquaintances.
We’re fortunate enough to live in a time and place in which, as consumers, our needs are met and often exceeded because of an industry of producers that work hard 24/7 to supply our demands. I can barely imagine what that must be like for the most productive producer of them all — Santa Claus.
Imagine the big boss himself as he tries to keep up with the ever-growing demands of his ever-growing range of consumers and their ever-growing preference in products. Mr. Kringle’s practices have no doubt been guided by the ever-growing benefits of Industry 4.0. In fact, Santa’s workshop no longer looks like its humble beginnings, it’s now on it’s way to being a fully functional smart workshop that utilizes cyber-physical systems. But like a majority of CPG and Manufacturing factories, it’s not there yet.
While Santa has pursued innovative technologies to transform his factory, which has helped with increasing production and reducing costs, he hasn’t fully optimized overall workshop operations. And that’s not due to a lack of trying. The thought that surely haunts him as he struggles with the most remarkable SKU explosion in history and challenges his jolly demeanor is, “What have I overlooked, ho ho ho?” Line changeovers in Santa’s workshop must be precise or a significant part of modern-day Christmas may be missed by kids from 1 to 92. The stress of this alone would be enough to justify a transformation into Krampus, a heist by the Grinch, or, dare I say it, lumps of coal in every stocking.
Santa is probably stumped. There’s only so much improvement that can come from common digitization initiatives that overlook the most important asset to a factory — the people (or elves). People make or break a factory’s ability to produce. One of the most common production process pain points experienced by CPG and Manufacturing factories is the line changeover. Machines are down, and they stay down until the work executed by the people, the physical act of changing the line over, is completed. And without the proper solution in place, there’s a huge blindspot in any continuous improvement initiative that gets rolled out because it doesn’t take into consideration the entire process.
That’s where Parsable really shines. We connect workers — to systems, to machines, to each other. And because of that, bottlenecks are broken, issues are resolved, and new insights are made available. This decreases downtime (check out these interesting stats on downtime), increases cross-functional collaboration, and enhances operational oversight, all of which are required to increase production or reduce costs.
So give your company, your organization, your team, your people a gift that keeps on giving this holiday season and make your workforce a connected workforce. We’ll even talk with you one on one to show you how a mobile collaboration and workflow solution can impact your business.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from Parsable!
Oh, and Santa, baby, forgot to mention one little thing… All I want for Christmas is for you to ask, “Parsable, with your workers so connected, won’t you “digitize” my workshop tonight?”
