SOA for the greatest logistical night of all

Dave Linthicum just posted this very keen look at the business and manufacturing operations at the North Pole, wondering if service oriented architecture would increase efficiency and agility.

I'm sure Santa Inc.'s operations go year round, but everything has to be ready to be shipped, on time and without defects, within a single night. Packages have to go out to more than a billion customers (the world's children under 12) within a 24-hour time frame. With just one vehicle to make all those deliveries. That's pressure, even if you do have 364 days to prepare.

Dave suggests RFID-tagging all goods, with information flowing real-time across an SOA-enabled system. SOA can also ease integration with Santa Inc.'s business partners, which I'm sure are a far-flung global network.  Of course, cloud computing resources can be leveraged as well.

Dave also suggests this would be a good way to downsize North Pole operations. Ho ho ho.