Manufacturing the Thing - A Sweet Perspective for Managing Manufacturing Data & Workflows

We are going to get into the basic management of manufacturing data, both the information used to create a ‘thing’ and data captured about the specific ‘things’ produced, with a tasty bias to the base content. In my regular job, our main Airtable base manages these types of data for creating complicated lenses. [In a nutshell, think of a lens in a binocular, but instead of a glass lens we make a lens of structured plastic, intended to significantly improve the normal binocular performance]. For this session however, to convey the concepts around something that is a bit more ‘everyday’, the base we’ll be working out of for this session will be themed around baked goods - a sometimes side hobby of mine. Some of the big features I want to demonstrate are creating a workflow that functions across tables and views, using views to segregate similar things in the same table (think cupcake, cake, and cookie), and restricting/managing changes to design data (recipes). What I hope you takeaway is an appreciation for the data structure behind making ‘things’ and an example that you can use in your daily life, even if you are just keeping track of iterations on something tasty in your kitchen.

Takeaways

• Using automations and formulas to drive a workflow

• Concepts for base design to manage changes to a design (recipe)

• Emphasis on the value of the mobile app for data collection

• Examples & best practices for ways to segment your data-structure