The Golden Snowball Contest
Written by: Tony Harris, December 14, 2015
E&I is based in Rochester NY. As such, it is one of the contenders for the ‘Golden Snowball Contest’. Last year Syracuse won with a 132” total snow fall. Buffalo was third with 129” and Rochester 3rd with 112”. Rochester last won in the 2012-2013 season. It is a competition that I always hope we will lose.
E&I implemented a new ERP system (enterprise Resource Planning) in October and this provide better visibility of our inventory, orders with suppliers and other resources necessary in planning. However, I noted that there was no field to account for snow fall.
Buffalo, Syracuse and Rochester, are all on Lake Ontario and in the winter, air will drift across the warm lakes absorbing lots of moisture. It will then hit the cold land and dump its cargo. Those of us living in Upstate NY are well aware of what ‘lake effect snow’ means. It means we get dumped on! Of course the kids love snow days, but when you are in a manufacturing company and trying to meet commitments to customers, it makes even the best planning in the world, a challenge.
What really scares me is that we haven’t had any snow this year yet. I know that this has nothing to do with global warming and so I think that January, February and March are going to make up for no snow in November or December.
In one week’s time at least the days will start getting longer; that’s a nice thought – I’m trying to stay positive…