Santa’s Workshop Would Be A Mess Without SMS
SMS really stands for Santa’s Magic Secret
It’s that time of year again. Santa’s workshop is buzzing (literally) getting ready for Christmas because Santa relies on SMS to help him and the elves get all those toys made and delivered. Oh yes, Santa is very tech savvy. How do you think he manages to get toys to millions of kids every year? The supply chain management alone would make any other jolly old elf a grinch. Santa has the tech that’s very nice indeed.
Production Management
Let’s talk about making all those toys. I’m betting Santa has a pretty amazing factory up there in the North Pole, but even Santa has to get supplies from somewhere. You think elves can make graphics chips? Leave that to the experts. Since Santa has to manage getting parts and materials from around the world he’s connected his ERP (Elf Resource Planning) system to an SMS gateway to get alerts when shipments are on their way, arrived, or delayed. Santa’s ERP system (home built by Mrs Claus, she’s quite the coder you know) then sends SMS alerts to the shop floor so the elves can adjust production schedules as needed.
When parts come in early, the elves can shift resources to make those toys while waiting for parts for others. Everyone from Santa to Hermie in his dentist office knows exactly how every part of production is going. The production dashboard sends out alerts when production is falling behind or there are major issues (like the time Rudolf’s nose shorted out one of the plastic molding machines…don’t ask). Mrs Claus only needs a single API connection to send out SMS, push messages, emails, and even chat bots from the Claus 3.0 ERP system. Which saves her lots of time to work on updating the NoN (Naughty or Nice) app.
Yeah, the list
Santa might see you when you’re sleeping and know when you’re awake, but Santa has to sleep so he uses the NoN app to keep the list up to date (yes, there are still hard copy backups). Kids tend to stay on one list or the other for long periods of time (and kids under 3 are automatically on the nice list), so Santa only needs an update when there’s a change. He gets a push message from NoN when a child moves from one list to another. You can imagine how this trickles down. Increase in nice means more toys and increase in naughty means more coal. When Santa has a question about someone on the list, he can automatically start a chat or send a text message to NoN control for more information.
Santa has a big, kind heart so most of the time it’s moving kids from naughty back to nice. Grownups, we don’t get a pass. We have to work to get back on the nice list.
Logistics for the big night
While Santa still delivers all the presents by sleigh in one night, he can’t carry all the toys at once so Santa has a clever system in place. He has a series of suborbital waystations around the world where he keeps toys for each region (plus food for the reindeer, spare parts for the sleigh, and extra suits for Santa). The tricky part is making sure the waystations aren’t around for too long (it’s gotter harder and harder to trick NORAD into thinking they’re just giant flocks of geese). So geolocation lets the elves know where Santa is so they can launch the waystation just in time. As Santa gets within 3 degrees of longitude of the next spot, an SMS is sent to the elves to launch the next waystation. Santa is notified when the station is in position via push to the sleigh’s HUD (I told you Santa had cool tech). When Santa has left the station he taps a quick message down to the elves to retrieve the station and if there is anything he needs for the next one.
Emergency alerts
The world isn’t as safe as it used to be. Santa has a lot more buildings to fly around and those fancy home alarm systems keep adapting to sense even Santa’s stealthy magic. If there is a problem, Santa can tap on his phone to let the elves know he’s in trouble. The message is send to dispatch stations around the world with Santa’s location and the problem. In an instant, help is on the way and Santa is out of a jam.
The end is in sight, time for a vacation!
As Santa cruises home on the last leg of the journey, he books his vacation plans. He and Mrs Claus always take January off somewhere warm and tropical. As Santa sips his cocoa, he books flights (Santa class, of course), hotel, and even excursions (Santa loves SCUBA diving). As he’s zipping back to the North Pole he’s getting SMS updates with confirmations, sends messages back and forth to customer service when he has questions, and has everything ready by the time he lands.
By the time everyone is done opening presents, Mr and Mrs Claus Noel of Alert, Nunavut are on their way to get some well needed rest. They checked in via 2-Way SMS and got a coupon for a nice spa package too (someone earned their place on the nice list for that!) and soon will be resting somewhere in the Turks and Caicos.
Be like Santa, mobilize your business with SMS
Santa has revolutionized his whole operation with mobile messaging. And you want to talk about legacy systems? Some of Santa’s computers were built by Charles Babbage and programed by Lady Ada Lovelace! If Santa can hook up his systems to modern communications gateways (with room to grow), so can you.
Originally published at www.infobip.com.
