Mars is Going Digital

 Traditional candy company Mars moves Digital. Well put and in particular that it is about business process, Are we looking at the right problem?  Bot just wild experimentation.

Using Digital Tools to Move a Candy Company Into the Future  in NYTimes

Lauren Belomy, 32, is a digital transformation associate with Mars in New York City.

What do you do at work?

My job is to help move the company forward in a world that’s digital. We’re a traditional manufacturing company, and we need to be ready for the future.

I consider what opportunities the future will present, how we can best react and how we’ll make decisions about them.

I explore the ways in which we can take advantage of new technologies and tools, such as artificial intelligence; how we should experiment; and whether we are even looking at the right problems. Mars is based in McLean, Va., and I work remotely in Manhattan.

Did anyone do this before you?

It’s a new type of role, and one of my goals is to explain what’s possible in simple language so people understand.

Part of my work involves prototyping, such as growing peanut plants in a fish tank using digital automation — without human intervention. To do this, I worked with a few colleagues in Mount Olive, N.J., a unit that I’m part of, though I don’t work there all the time. We implemented an automated watering and fertilizing schedule to see how the plants would grow .....