Santa At Recovery

 Santa At Recovery

By Catalina9

This year had been a quite different experience for Santa. In addition to complete the productions of all gifts requested, Santa had to implement several changes to the operation, which included change management processes, or safety-case actions. For centuries Santa had successfully delivered gifts to every household on the globe. On the same date every year, over a 24-hour period, every corner of the world received a visit from Santa delivering gifts that both kids and grownups had requested. This year was not any different than previous years with gift requests from all corners of the globe. 

Santa scouting out the new place.

    What was different was that Santa needed to move the manufacturing plant due to competition by a previously little known of the genetically altered reindeer Randolph and the crew. While Randolph had been active for a test-run some years ago, and at that time Rudolph hand to run, run, run to stay ahead. These reindeer had inhabited one of the most sparsely and remote areas of the globe since Glacial Lake Missoula flooded the West. Santa needed to move South to somewhere around the 60th parallel to be able to compete with these strong, but unpredictable reindeer. The isolated North Pole was a perfect place for other reindeer to infiltrate Rudolph’s crew, infiltrate the elves, and spread invisible poisonous particles onto the gifts. Santa’s ancestors had spoken about these reindeer several times, but Santa did not believe it was possible or that they would become an actual threat to their very successful gift delivery process. For centuries Santa had been the world’s super-supplier of seasonal gifts all over the globe and Santa had no plans for that to change

Santa had developed the Streamlined Mission Service, or SMS, for delivery of gifts and to reduce roof-top incidents and excursions. Initially, Santa was appointed the AE (Accountable Elf), but that didn’t work out since Santa was busy with the production, reading letters and the annual training of reindeer. Mrs. Santa was therefore appointed AE and to have final authority of streamlined operations, oversight resources and approval of elves. Since the implementation of SMS, Santa had noticed that there were several areas that were in need of operational safety improvements. Over time Santa’s SMS evolved into the core business solution center. Every decision now hits the SMS first before it enters anywhere else into the organization. 

Roof-top excursions and unstable approaches were reduced drastically compared to the pre-SMS days. Santa discovered the secret of training, communication and expectations. Rudolph, the lead reindeer and all the other reindeer were assigned specific roles and responsibilities tailored to their functional area in the operations. As the lead reindeer, Rudolph was responsible for planning and executing approaches and departures, while other reindeer were responsible for ATC (Around The Clock) communication, approach slope guidance, airspeed, local phenomena observations, being on the lookout for conflicting traffic, including DRONES (Delivery Resources On Nearby Estates and Surfaces), or on the lookout for other aeronautical obstructions. In addition, Santa applied SPC (Santa’s Professional Calculator) control sheets to assess operational processes. Santa was all set to get ready for the 2020 deliveries, but then the genetically altered reindeer and their Virtual Santa showed up. The only option was to move operations to a different place to be competitive. 

Santa submitted a proposal to the AE to initiate the move to a new location the day after all 2019 deliveries were done to be ready for the 2020 season in time. Normally, since Santa is capable of delivering gifts to billions of people during a 24-hour period the move should be a simple task. However, with all the capacity of Santa, if this move didn’t follow a plan, it could end up in a disaster. Since the beginning of time Santa had operated out of the North Pole and current processes were designed to be effective at that location. 

Over the last few years Santa had noticed an increase in UAV (Universal Autonomous Vessel) deliveries. Santa also took advantage of this service by allowing for the UAV’s to overfly the sleigh and pick up the gifts on the fly for delivery. Santa’s new place was also planned to be close to the UAV production location. 

Secret picture of Santa doing winter training in the summer

Santa was worried, but Mrs. Santa had for years planned for an unplanned move in the near future. Since the beginning of their SMS, Mrs. Santa had designed several Safety Cases for use in the future. Mrs. Santa’s Safety Cases included operational safety, regulatory compliance, compliance with standards and compliance with Santa’s SMS Policy. When preparing for unknown locations, Mrs. Santa had prepared each Safety-Case for locations with snow and ice, rain and fog and the desert with hot sun. In addition, each Safety-Case came prepared with an emergency preparedness plan and an operations contingency plan while on the road

Santa selected a location where reindeer training and their flights could be accessed any time of the year. Since one half of the gift deliveries are in locations without snow, there was a requirement for a location where non-snow training was available. In addition, Santa was looking for a place where the runway could be simulated with ice and snow during the summer months. After much research and drawing from centuries of data, Santa, with Mrs. Santa’s approval selected a location around the 60th parallel where there was a runway that recently was extended and paved, there was a lake at the end of one threshold for water landings training, including training for unexpected events if ditching should be necessary. The lake is a great place for winter training with ice and snow to simulate the North Pole. The runway is located in a narrow valley between tall mountains. This is perfect for departure and arrival training and for Rudolph and the crew to train for mountain flying with extreme winds and to exercise to gain strength to blast away from any place on the globe. In addition, there was heavy-water available for Santa to generate short-field takeoff power.  

Santa At Recovery was a success. The production plant was moved, and delivery operations were in place in time for the first departure. Recovery is the opposite of being reactive. Recovery is to be proactive.  An airport, airline or Santa at recovery is to be proactive to stay on the path with forward-looking accountability and forward-looking recovery while operating within a 3D environment. When driving down the road the driver is constantly in a recovery mode. It’s not a reactive recovery to recover from the ditch or to be towed out of a lake, but it’s to adjust how the vehicle travel 3D, which is time (speed), space (location) and compass(direction) to arrive at the fork in the road, at home, at Santa’s new place, or at the SMS goal set by the SMS Policy. 

Of course, this is a true story, and a blog wouldn’t be anything else. It’s true in that when drastic, or sudden unplanned changes becomes necessary for continued operations there is not even a tunnel somewhere to be found to look for the light at the end of the tunnel. Airlines and airports are now in a time period with a golden opportunity for aviation since the first flight in 1903 to accept the gift of Santa and Mrs. Santa’s to move forward and never look back. Santa and Mrs. Santa had faith in their hard work and SMS preparations. Without doubt, without knowing and without seeing the future, or being able to visualize or comprehend what was in store for their operations Santa and Mrs. Santa were prepared.  

A secret picture of Santa’s new location.

    Their success in the move, and their exception to exceed previous years customers’ confidence level and satisfaction, was contributed to their preparations, which becomes stored as a latent condition until needed. It was contributed to their just-culture and it was contributed to their vision to extend their SMS Policy (Streamlined Mission Policy) and their No Bucking Antlers Policy (Non-punitive Policy) to all their customers. It was crucial for Santa’s operations to accept the sudden changes without looking back and to move forward with a plan to achieve their objective to servicing their customers to their satisfaction. Someday Santa may move back to the North Pole, but then it will be a simple task because the move activated their Emergency Preparedness Plan as a Full-Scale Moch Disaster Exercise.  

Catalina9