su2015-4Hey everyone! Happy day to you.

I took a tour today of the new layout in the Wrapping Department. They have moved around their equipment so that they can be more efficient. And they got some new stuff too.

Elf Wally has long had automatic tape dispensers. A lot of people think that kind of tool is sort of silly. But when all you do is wrap presents all day and have to do it fast a little thing like an automatic tape dispenser is important.

But this year Wally is going to try automatic SPEED tape dispensers. These are different.

Here’s how it works. An elf puts a toy or a gift on his table and a robotic computer measures and weighs it in a fraction of a second. As the wrapper elf tears off the right amount of paper and begins to wrap it would the item the computer calculates exactly how much tape he needs and has it ready the second his hand reaches down for it.

I watched it in action and it is so accurate that elves are wrapping presents 23% faster than they were before. It is very impressive.

Of course, it is a machine. I saw Elf Molly wrapping a present and Elf Freddy walked by and put a sandwich on her table, not knowing the speed dispenser was activated. It was a BIG sandwich that the machine thought was part of what Molly was wrapping, so it kept spitting out tape — very fast!

So they have to watch how they use it.

Elf Ernest