ASXD - 2021 Year In Review

Easy to forget, but start of the year this was going to be the big game changer for automation.

Turns out we were half right - the first part of the problem statement was spot on - use DRS data with APIs to keep a stable(r) workflow - converting the final SAP GUI scripting into Python? Not quite - missed the mark here...

Was always a bit of a patchwork solution but we paused this quickly - stole the lessons learned, pivoted and is now whats driven us to the API first approach!

"Day In The Life" training was one of those things that took an enormous amount of effort to roll out properly - nevertheless it targeted the exact right people at the right time (for our lean friends JIT/JIS 😉) - it was genuinely appreciated by all the managers who attended, and if our core job or not, helped us achieve our objectives.

Looking towards 2022, targeted trainings may be something for the next wave of users we need to onboard - if it's stupid but it works, it ain't stupid.

Walking into the "non shared area" really was a bit like the wild west - pretty much a free for all / pure chaos with little to no oversight or structure. Jackie & Lisa got the awesome of job of trying to tame some of the madness!

Funny to look around now and see the troubles Airbus has in some of those other areas, whereas we just cruise along with an audit here and there - you guys really achieved benchmark status on this one!

If something really had to define 2021 than this would be it! It's the year we started to really scale our little activity here. In that last WeTalk! we made the comment:

"Its to ensure that data is understood, available, compliant and automated in a way that supports data analytics, automation and your wider business - you can think of this as the foundation - these guys are the plumbers - without readily available, compliant data the rest is just a hobby"

We made it - this year we officially upgraded ourselves from hobby status 💪

Airflow at the end of the day never probably should've been with us, but it was born out the need to professionalize what we do (we cant run python scripts on peoples PCs indefinitely!) With Airflow came the need to host it somewhere, and bought about our journey into Airbus DevOps & the OpenShift platform. Crazy to think how much new ground in Airbus we broke with this (non IT DevOps team / external net / SAP connectors for Airflow etc)

Between FreshDesk, API First and just general pipelines - we're expecting Airflow to deliver big things & make its mark in 2022. An amazing project really throwing us into the world of DevOps and modern platforms!

My view is this year we really transitioned from the "storming" to "norming" phase from the Tuckman model as an organization - clearly next year will be that final transition into the performing phase. It means further refinement, polish and stabilization of what we've been creating (so an evolution not a revolution) - you should all be proud, coming to this phase simply shows we've been successful as a team.

For 2022 though, our "customer" base is changing. This year it was the advanced analysts, data engineers setting the baselines. Next year it will be all about the business using the data, as the basics are now in place. We need to ensure we go the extra mile and bring our customers on board to get value from what we've built - a satisfied customer is the best business strategy of all.

I had more genuine deep belly laughs at these things (especially the drawing^[1] ones!) than any other Netflix series this year - was fantastic to see everyone take their slot, and really organize some brilliant light hearted sessions.

Not always easy to spend time together as a team but think these were some brilliant events and great moments to step back from the day to day - really one of my highlights from 2021!

^{[1]Thank goodness we can code as most of us cant draw!}

Yes we had pipelines, but hell they were pretty damn empty. Crazy to think but at the start of the year we only had a few datasets limited to weekly updates only. Based on this, it led to an enormous series of activities that needed to be developed such as delta loading procedures / field encryptions / FTP implementation / ingestion libraries for front & backend. An absolute monumental level of work done by many parties to get us to where we are today.

This really was a bit of a definition of the year and the absolute baseline to build 2022 on!

Enormous amounts of crappy excel / CSV inputs coming from multiple source systems. The teams were drowning in 100k+ lines of master data clashes each week and blocking the sale & delivery of A220 parts. Solution was a really well structured data wrangling process while automating the cleansing & issue identification with well structured log files for the teams.

Was high prio from the management and really saved the A220 team with this one - pragmatic, well executed & a huge impact!

Been another year of immense ups and downs - but again you guys have approached the unknown with such a level of optimism, integrity and constructiveness it makes this job an absolute joy.

You guys all really are what makes ASXD such a very special team, and I'm so fortunate to learn more about myself week on week from working with you all. I'm super excited to invite new member(s) to the team, spice up the dynamic & see where we all end up this time next year.

Thanks again for the incredible energy and dedication you have bought day in day out across the year.

71.6% Average Delivery Rate
1 Lost Team Member (Up 100%)
45 Tacos (Up 10%)
3 Potatoes (Up 67%)
311 Unique Skywise Users
7.3 Average MeWeGo
168 Mandatory Trainings (Up 509%)
196 Beers Drank During Friday Happy Hour
203 !!! Status Updates Provided (Down 26%)
TBD 2021 Taco Champion 🏆

Minh's DHL dashboard was an enormous piece of work - from mastering the API pipelines (which lead to the need for things like Airflow) to battling with how difficult Slate & CSS are in Skywise - this project covered everything.
It offered something "sexy" to inspire the management / a roadmap on how to industrialize external pipes / taught us patience while trying to straighten outdated CSS / most importantly, under no circumstances to create something in Slate... Until the next time of course 😉

Was a brilliant project providing value to the functions and lasting lessons to us!

Im not sure anyone can truly appreciate the efforts and energy Chee Chuan went through this year when it came to preparing for presentations (DITL / Leadership Team Awareness / Bruno & Co / Customer Roadshow etc)

Each and every session went in with an open mind, refined his style, pacing, delivery - each time noticeably better than the last. The evolution he made this year was nothing short of amazing. This kind of dedication & vulnerability to put yourself so far out your comfort zone and deliver anyway should be an inspiration to all of us!

Dirk finally answered the question on everyones minds - Yes, size matters. Little like Maltes ad-hoc delivery analysis, these kinds of questions coming from the management (and our ability to turn them around quickly!) really bring enormous value to the company.

It shows the top management first hand how data can help drive decision making. Dirks simple summary - "planning policies should at least include part dimensions as it drives the replenishment costs & lead-times"

💥BOOM - 40m€ per year opportunities listed at PN level without breaking a sweat!

He was the first hire in ASXD and been a part of everything we've built here - the projects, the drive to dive deep, the culture, the way we choose to interact. We talk about diversity in teams, Luis was the academic diversity - he bought his views and challenged all of us to be better in his own way. Few of us learnt more about supplychain theory in a year with Luis than what others would learn in a lifetime in planning.

His time with us (as well as that dammed tearjerker of a goodbye presentation!) will always hold a special spot.

So this one was all about stabilizing what we've been working on - brining some professionalism and stability to what we do.

Start of the year we didn't have a single thing other than what was on post-it notes or in our heads.

Now we have a little over 30k words covering code snippets, processes, FAQs to DevOps infrastructure!

This is literally one of my favorite projects from ASXD - unlike Lilly, this robot doesn't wear expensive designer dresses, it's not flashy with a cool logo - it does however work through masses of data, write emails, reduce leadtime & just makes ordering officers lives a touch easier!

It impacts almost every DR coming through this business (hence why it will now be the first use case for API first!) and just an awesome example of the business and ASXD working through a problem from data to automation.

If we talk about true agility you would be hard pressed to find another project in Satair thats a better example of decentralized skills being applied passionately to a problem and learning in the process!