hi expert please help me read the case and answer the question How can North Pole Workshops better respond in shifts in demand? 500 words thank you

topic : Just in Time for the Holidays

A biting wind whips around the sprawling manufacturing campus at North Pole Work-shops. The streets between the solid brick buildings are covered in fluffy white snow. Flur-ries swirl against the steely gray sky of a late November morning. But the soft glow of light from the windows and steady hum of machinery hint at the productivity inside. Buildings 1 and 2 house the companys massive mail facility, where childrens letters to Santa are sorted and matched against a data-base that tracks the writers behavior over the course of the year. Inside Building 3, gleaming steel equipment moves board games and Erector sets toward pallets where they are shrink-wrapped and readied for distribution on Christmas Eve. Red garland is draped across the windows that line the outer walls, though none of the busy elves seems to notice the festive touch. A large man in a red suit walks among the workers. His smiles and waves are returned by the elves bustling on the shop floor. It is just five weeks until Christmas, and the plant is in high gear. The man is startled by the short, sharp blast of a horn and turns to find a forklift stacked high with boxes pulling up alongside him. Sorry for the horn, Santa. Not a minute to waste, says the elf at the wheel. Hows everything going, Smitty? SantaClaus asks. its seems that all the children want Timmy! The elf pauses to wipe a handkerchief across his forehead. We got the news late last nightputthe pedal to the metal on Timmy the TinselTown Train. Ive been on this floor for almost 75 years, and Ive never seen it busier. Gotta run! The elf toots and waves as the forklift scoots around Santa and heads toward the far end of the building. All I Want for Christmas A few moments later, Santa sits high above the whirring conveyor belts in a glass-walled office that provides a sweeping view of the activity below. Two elves have joined Santa at his bright-green conference table, grinning as Santa pores over a hefty computer printout. Well, this is unexpected, says Santa. Look at the spike in demand for the anniversary edi- tion of Timmy the Tinsel Town Train. Its good to see an old favorite doing well, he says with a surprised chuckle. Uh, thats the CD-ROM for Timmys inter- active adventure series, Santa, says Isobel Lee, Director of Wish List Fulfillment and De- light. The train set is just, well, chugging along. Oh, he laughs, adjusting his spectacles. Well, regardless, its nice to see that kids still love Timmy. Maybe too much, says Dexter Pepperflep- per, Chief Shoprunner. I dont know that we can keep up with that demand. We werent ex- pecting it, and our duplication facilities are maxed. Santa strokes his thick white beard. This is the third time in three years that his elves have been caught off guard by a toys sudden surge in popularity. Earlier in the season, even a month ago, it would have been possible to find capacity, but now every line is running full tilt. The elves are on overtime in the sprint toward Christmas. How does this keep happening? Santa asks. I thought we had all kinds of fancy new plan- ning software. We do, says Lee. But its not perfect. She explains how the list-checking team looks at samples of incoming letters and e-mail traffic and extrapolates demand. Those figures are then matched against the naughty and nice da- tabase. But the percentage of children rated very good is running 20% ahead of our as- sumptions. And technology penetration in East- ern Europe and the interior of mainland China is greater than projected. We cant disappoint the children, says Santa. And we dont have much time left be- fore Christmas. He lifts his bulk out of the chair. Ill see you two at the operating com- mittee meeting this afternoon. We cant solve this on an empty stomach. With that, he heads out of the office into the blustery, cold afternoon toward his house for a much- needed bowl of porridge. Dashing Through the Snow On his way home, Santa detours to the stables for his daily visit with the reindeer. A few min- utes watching the young reindeer calves play- ing their rambunctious games and feeding them carrots is enough to remind him how much he loves the holidays and making chil- dren happy on Christmas morning. He looks up at the sky and watches the vapor trail of a passenger jet slowly dissolve. Not so many decades ago, he had the airways to himself. So far, hes been able to avoid a col- lision, but last year there were three near misses, and air traffic seems to get heavier all the time. The GPS navigation system installed last year saved him more than 50,000 miles and almost 14 minutes on the runbut the number of deliveries continues to grow. Maybe he should ask Cindy Counterwaite to look into an upgrade that would allow him to adjust the flight plan based on live weather reports. Or perhaps he should invest in nimbler rein- deeror maybe even motorize the sleigh. But as his eyes return to the exercise field, Santa knows that he wouldnt have the heart to say goodbye to Rudolph and the gang. Santa walks toward his house, a simple peak- roofed structure adorned with gingerbread de- tail. It looks almost like a toy itself among the solid manufacturing buildings. Inside, Santa plays with the steaming porridge in his bowl. Behind him, a fire roars in the oversize field- stone hearth. Mrs. Claus comes up behind her husband and lovingly pats his shoulders. Its always hectic about now, she says. And every year, you and the elves make it in the end. But it gets harder every year, Santa says. More kids. More toys. Lists that arrive later and later. Oh, it used to be so simplewooden blocks, a train set, a doll. We made the same toys year after year, and the kids were thrilled to get them. I was able to trust my own intu- ition. Now we have more than a million SKUs. Its getting so I have trouble keeping them all straight. Trends jump across the oceans in an instant. Ive asked the elves in the field to go beyond reporting on kids behavior and start trend spotting. Ive invested in software. But still I cant help thinking that one of these days were not going to be able to do it. Youre worrying too much about this, she replies. You still have good intuition. You know the kids ; you know what they like in fact, you know better than they do. Theyre al- ways changing their lists based on the latest television ads. You know what theyll truly love. Thats the magic of getting a gift from Santa Claus. Santa puts his jacket back on and fastens the thick black belt. He knows that Mrs. Claus is right, but he also knows that even elfin magic cant always save the day. Naughty or Nice? Santa pauses outside the boardroom and nods appreciatively at the activity below. He is star- tled from his reverie when his executive helper, Stanley Wibersham, rushes up behind him out of breath. You have to see this, Santa. The elf hands him a copy of Teen Scene magazine with the headline Teen Queen Spat: Juicy Details Inside. Page 36, wheezes Wibersham. Santa flips open the magazine and reads in disbelief. In an exclusive Teen Scene interview, Rebecca June hinted that Leslie Linehan missed the Teen Scene Awards because she had put on a few pounds (not that we could see them when she was clubbing late into the night in LA). When we caught up with Leslie, she shot back, Rebecca June is juvenile. How can you take her seriously when she walks around with a stupid kitty cat on her wrist? Thats so yesterday. Santa points at the grainy shots in the maga- zine. A few extra pounds? Either one of them could be blown away by a stiff breeze. He glances down at his own few extra pounds and closes the magazine quickly, resisting the urge to put both girls onto the Naughty list. Rebecca Junes stupid kitty cat is the new Me- owrrr, a big-eyed, plush kitten cell-phone car- rier with eyes that light up when the phone rings and purrs when stroked, thanks to special sensors embedded in the fur. Its also the prod- uct North Pole has planned to be the top choice among girls eight to 15 years old. When Santa arrives in the boardroom, the senior elves on the management team are merrily watching Hollythe model for the Meowrrrchase a candy-cane wrapper across the floor. Cindy Counterwaite, Chief List Twice Checker, and Dexter Pepperflepper are standing on their chairs, dangling brightly col- ored ribbons in an attempt to attract the kit- tens attention. OK, says Santa, as he makes his way to the head of the large rectangular table. He holds up the magazine. In case your copy of the latest Teen Scene hasnt arrived yet, the Meowrrr has been called so yesterday by the young lady with the number one pop album in the U.S. He picks up a sample Meowrrr from the table and strokes it gently as it mews at him. How can you be so yesterday when you havent even had a chance to be so today? The room grows quiet as the team realizes that along with the challenge of a spike in de- mand for Timmy CDs, they are also looking at a likely sharp dip in interest in the Meowrrr. Pepperflepper winces when he checks his units-on-hand report and sees that there are ten million Meowrrrs ready to go. He considers the possibility of turning the toy into some- thing else, but very few of the components are reusable. I think I may have at least a partial solu- tion, says Barry Fiddledip, Chief Bedazzler. He flashes the Teen Scene ad sales numbers on the projection screen. Fiddledip explains that Teen Scene s circulation is mostly in the U.S. and Canada, so distribution plans for Asia and Eu- rope can go ahead as scheduled. Cell phone penetration in Africa is up sig- nificantly, so we can shift some units there, he adds. Fiddledips bright blue eyes are alive with the eternal optimism of a marketer and the un- dying mischief of an elf. And I havent given up totally on North America. Rebeccas fans may want the Meowrrr to show their support. Thats a nice bit of elf marketing magic if it works. Santa turns to Counterwaite. I know we can pull our lists based on naughty and nice. Can we segment Rebecca June fans versus Leslie Linehan fans? No, sir, says Counterwaite. Celebrity pref- erences among preteen girls change too fre- quently. I can pull Barbie lovers. Santa turns back to Fiddledip. So net net? He scoops a handful of red and green butter mints from one of the bowls in the center of the table. Fiddledip clears his throat and squares his shoulders. I think we can still move seven to seven and a half million units. An uncharacter- istically somber mood descends as the elves contemplate three million Meowrrrs sitting in the warehouse, unloved, on December 26. And, worse, millions of disappointed children who might not find a Timmy CD under the tree. Making a ListAnd Checking It Twice Santa stands and paces the room. Lets talk about the bigger issue. We are the original just-in-time business. We have one market: the worlds children. We have one deliverable: the right toys to the right kids. We have one delivery date: December 25. We cant move extra merchandise through after-Christmas sales. We dont have outlet stores. We have to get these things right. Cindy, how can we im- prove our planning? Counterwaite shuffles the papers in front of her. Our ERP system is certainly adequate, Santa. But it isnt state of the art by any means. She explains that there is no direct link between the letters received from children, which have to be hand keyed into the system, and the procurement and manufacturing sys- tems. Indeed, Jeffrey Peartree, North Poles Chief of Childrens Correspondence, had re- peatedly commented on the fact that incoming mail was sorted so efficiently and yet the data didnt feed into the planning process. Sitting back in his chair now, Peartree simply raises his pointy eyebrows in resignation. Counterwaite flashes a new slide onto the screen. If we invest in upgrades to the system, we can make our processes leaner and be more responsive with our manufacturing. She goes on to advocate investing in a system that would allow them to get a better sense of real demand, rather than extrapolating from early data. She describes for her colleagues multilin- gual scanning capabilities, which would get the kids requests into the system more quickly, and a true CRM module that would let them tag gift requests with all the available data points about each childs behavior over the course of the yeardata that comes in from a variety of sources such as mall Santas and re- port cards. What Cindy says is all true, Im sure, inter- jects Pepperflepper. But none of that would help us cope with this situation. All the plan- ning in the world cant help when there are sudden shifts in demand like weve just seen. We need to be able to turn our manufacturing on a dime. He puts up a slide that shows the cycle times for the manufacture of various sample product lines. It highlights the im- provements that have come with outsourcing, starting with block cutting ten years earlier, electronic components five years earlier, and software development for the past two years. Suddenly, Fiddledip leaps onto his chair. I defy you to find anyone who can match an elfs artistry and craft in toy making! The room is quiet for a moment until Holly pounces into the bowl of butter mints, sending them flying in all directions. The group bursts into laugh- ter, and the debate continues with urgency but good humor. Santa watches the interaction, weighing the alternatives. Would better soft- ware give him an accurate picture of demand? Would more market research eliminate some guesswork? Or should he give up on accurate predictions altogether and make manufactur- ing more flexible? All the elves in the room, he knew, wanted to make the kids happy. They just didnt agree on how to do it. How can North Pole Workshops better respond to shifts in demand?