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What do 50 +/- boxes, leftover and recycled molded cardboard from produce shipping boxes, 140 sheets of paper, two rolls of packing tape, 746 miles of road, ONE trailer, ONE truck, ONE car, four utility companies, ONE hotel, several restaurants, a grocery store, a bakery, four parents, apples, Ravel’s Bolero, and Mother’s Day all have in common?
A young woman who loves making tarts is moving back to Dallas ready to take on the world.
My daughter Rachel and the proverbial apple of my eye has already studied a completely different field acing her exams and received her diploma. However, after several years and much introspection, she finally came to the conclusion she needed to follow her passion: become a pastry chef.
Throughout her studies, she has called me many times sharing tales of “Chef,” the science behind ingredients, nuances of the art, funny stories, frustrations, and many, many pictures and videos of her creations. ONE of her favorite ingredients to work with is the apple. And each time she shows me something, I mentally track the process of how each of the ingredients found their way into her workspace. Today as she makes her way back to Dallas just in time for Mother’s Day to begin another segment in her journey as a pastry chef, I find myself again tracking those logistics and many of the players involved in this process.
Apple Boxes
These boxes were gathered over time from her work in the pastry department at a high-end grocery store. These boxes were filled with the work of many people. The carefully grown apples are handpicked and delicately rolled into giant bins to avoid bruising the fruit. The bins are transported to a packing facility where the apples are checked, sorted, and floated in water chutes. As they pass under a scanner, each apple is checked for color, shape, bruising, or other deformities. Based on that information, the apples are sorted into different chutes and floated down to another storage bin. After a few more steps, the apples are stored until they are ready to go to market. At that point, the apples are taken to another packaging facility where they receive a final inspection, get tagged, and packaged by hand into the boxes. From here they are placed in a refrigerated shipping room to await delivery.
This ONE apple represents months of coordinated work of many people across many different organizations each with the same specific focus and goal – to get this apple to its final destination just in time.
Take this same story and repeat it for each and every item used. So many people. So many hands. So much coordination, timing, execution just to get ONE apple to the work table where Rachel then carefully carves it into a rosette placed in the center of a tart that is then delivered to our table to be shared with family and friends.
At One Network, we spend a great deal of time discussing demand planning, just-in-time deliveries, coordination, execution, and optimizing. This Mother’s Day, I would like to thank each and every ONE who has done each of these things and unknowingly played a role in this beautiful tart created by my daughter Rachel. The farmers, harvesters, factory workers, developers of AI that create the machines that sort and tag the apples, the 3PLs and 4PLs, the distribution center workers, supply chain managers and coordinators, the staff at grocery stores who unpack and stock, the chefs who studied under other chefs and now carry on their legacy, and the programmers who develop the apps the run the programs behind the scenes that track each step…and many, many more. Thank you for what you do. Thank you for providing the goods and services, for getting the tools and ingredients necessary created and delivered so that my family can enjoy this beautiful creation this Mother’s Day weekend.
And of course, if you would like to learn how One Network’s Real Time Value Network can help get more apples delivered just-in-time, we’d love to show you how we can help you make that happen.
Happy Mother’s Day from One Network!
- ONE Apple on Mother’s Day - May 12, 2017
- Supply Chain Innovation or Chaos? - December 16, 2016