The Turkey Dinner and Manufacturing Systems

Thanksgiving is the best holiday of the year for me hands down.
As I did last week, I get to enjoy many traditions with family and
friends without all the pressures that the next holiday typically
brings.  More than 30 years ago, I used to play in the annual
“Turkey Bowl” football game at the grade school at 10
am. Just show up and play. Now, the kids play and my friends and I
just chat on the sidelines and reminisce on our once greatness of
catching that great post-pattern pass. When the game is all over we
head our separate ways to the true holiday quest of the perfect
Turkey dinner and some “real” football games to watch
on TV.

I do not know about you but I think there are probably 100
different ways to cook that turkey. Personally, I have become a fan
of the deep-fry turkey myself over the past few years or the
bourbon marinated one. Just like any manufacturing process though,
there is a recipe and formulations for everything from the marinade
to the process of cooking per pound. Then there are the workforce
management requirements of keeping mom, sisters and the aunts
coordinated and moving forward as they argue over the proper gravy
mix and what goes into all the fixings. The side dishes need to be
coordinated so that final assembly scheduling is completed at the
precise time that the first football game ends and the lag time
between the second game starts. This is a very delicate scheduling
dilemma that impacts family relations for a full year.  There
should be a warning for any novice to the family trying to lead
this endeavor for the first time.

Just imagine how current manufacturing systems could assist in this
process. First off, a true hybrid manufacturing system is required
to support the mixed mode of process and discrete integrated with
the back-end final assembly scheduling support. Between the recipe
and formulations for the gravies and marinades with the finite
capacity of the deep fryer or the oven, balancing capacity is
critical. This would certainly eliminate most of the ERP solutions
to a narrow few. Maybe adding some Manufacturing Operations
Management (MOM) solutions for visibility into capacity variations
as temperature climbs could be a valuable addition to the process.
The event-based logic of when to trigger the placement of the beans
into the oven as my brother is outside deep-frying the turkey could
require a mobile application. Meanwhile, Mom is measuring the whole
process with a Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC)
performance-based reporting engine that ensures continuity in
family relations for another year at the lowest level of
risk.  The true challenge is the final delivery time. Sort of
like a just-in-time event as everything must be back-scheduled to
the alarm that the first football game is over. Somehow a web-based
content analysis tool that supports multi-media is required to
alert the cooks that the process of final assembly must
begin. 

Everything is pulled and staged into the final kitchen
manufacturing work cell to minimize WIP and ensure the food remains
hot. Everything seems to be going fine with the largest risk yet to
begin –the famous “carving of the turkey” event. Can
dad once again rise to the occasion? Seems this year he has
requested an electric carving knife and the bookies in Vegas are
having a field day. The odds swing as dramatically as the DOW these
days and to everyone’s’ surprise and delight another
turkey is carved to perfection. The pressure over and good food had
by one and all, everyone settles into their post-turkey dinner nap
and cuts out coupons for the after Thanksgiving Day sales. How we
managed this process without manufacturing systems in the past is
beyond anyone’s imagination.