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Little Debbie (McKee Foods)
CastNET Sweetens Little Debbie's Corporate Outlook
Not every employee has the time or inclination to stop and check email or read notes stuck on a bulletin board. McKee Foods, makers of Little Debbie snacks, therefore chose CastNET™ and Scala’s InfoChannel visual communications suite to give their staff another way to keep up to date on company news, events, and weather forecasts.
Instead of digging through memos or the company bulletin board, employees can now catch up on important corporate information ranging from human resources communications, to inspirational messages from management by watching Little Debbie TV (LDTV).
Despite being hundreds of miles away from each other, all three McKee manufacturing plants in Tennessee, Virginia, and Arkansas are tied into the same network, allowing corporate headquarters to create messaging that is interspersed with local content produced at each plant that stays true to McKee’s corporate identity.
“The new communications channel is successful and the branches love it,” exclaims Tom Hunter, corporate media production manager at McKee Foods. “LDTV is definitely turning heads.”
The first step towards success for Hunter and his team has been creating templates in Scala’s InfoChannel Designer. McKee
employees then utilize these templates in via the CastNET software, a Web-based content management system for created by the Digital Display Group. The use of pre-defined templates helps McKee keep training and management costs down while maintaining consistent look throughout LDTV.
Content distribution and publishing responsibilities were set up in advance and has worked so flawlessly that the process appears to run in the background as part of LDTV’s daily operations. Adds Hunter, “We haven’t had to put anyone in charge of running the new system since publishing has become a virtually invisible step to our users."
Working with the Digital Display Groups CastNET content management system, approximately 20 administrative assistants across multiple departments within each branch create messages specific to their plant and their department. These messages are entered and approved collaboratively over the Internet by one of eight departmental communication coordinators. Now corporate communications at McKee Foods has become a well-oiled machine, producing three updates
every day from less than an hour of effort from any McKee employee. And while other visual communication network solutions would require McKee Foods to hire dedicated full-time personnel for creation and content management, CastNET’s ease of use makes content creation and scheduling a tiny part of each participants day.
“Every contributing department at every facility has a communication coordinator who approves content written by his or her team,” explains Hunter. “Individuals have the guidelines they need to be effective while being able to work somewhat independently.”
To display content, the three McKee plants each utilize one or more Scala InfoChannel Players. These players run 24 hours a day, driving half a dozen televisions strategically placed throughout cafeterias and break rooms at each McKee facility.
While reliability has never been an issue, the playback quality was originally foremost on Hunter’s mind after he had tested other products. “My background in broadcast led me to Scala because they’ve been around for 10- 15 years and still have superior video playback and smoother transitions,” says Hunter. “It just has a slicker look.”
Contact:
Leslie Parker
Alpha Video & Audio, Inc.
7711 Computer Ave
Edina, MN 55435
952.896.9898
www.alphavideo.com