Managing Demand at the North Pole

It's impossible not to be humbled and impressed by the massive, sprawling Christmas machine that is the North Pole. Its manufacturing and distribution centers alone encompass a monolithic 1268 acres in the land of perpetual snow.  Of course Santa's colossal operation is all but invisible to the naked eye, but the day-to-day movement of millions of incoming requests and wishes, and the titanic task of processing those orders through shipping don't occur with Christmas magic alone. The North Pole's first and only CEO, Santa Claus, shares with us his secret to success over his many decades of operations.
"We've done an excellent job of balancing traditional toy making with the integration of the latest technologies to help our operations perform at their peak every year to maintain an effective, streamlined supply chain. To do that, we need to perform flawlessly at every step of the picking, packing and shipping processes" says  Santa Claus. "The days of parchment paper and quill pens is far behind us."
"As with any retailer in this day and age, customer satisfaction is the end all and be all" says Chief of Supply Chain elf, Frimfram Buttercicle. "25 years ago, the spreadsheet was king but it's become impossible to operate efficiently and accurately without automating the collection and processing of data. Elves are VERY good at their job but to be fair, we're not perfect. A single mishap with the delivery of a single toy could result in a VERY disappointed youngster on Christmas Day. Imagine little Sally asking for a Barbie and instead receiving a BBQ. That's not acceptable. We now use a combination of Honeywell CK71 terminals for our floor elves, and Thor vehicle mount computers for our forklift elves. In addition, we use PX4i High Performance printers for printing our barcodes."
The secret behind Santa's success is his laser-like focus on customer satisfaction. "Santa is intently focused on ensuring that his deliveries are exactly what the customer wants and meets their needs," Frimfram says. "To do this, we make use of Honeywell's product line to keep us focused and streamlined while keeping errors at a minimum. As a result, Santa's supply chain is demand driven." Santa Claus and the North Pole arguably has the most complex supply chain on the globe. "...That's why automatic data collection plays such an important role in every aspect of our operation."

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