  ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) is the world's largest
ground-based facility for observations in the millimeter/submillimeter regime.
One of ALMA's outstanding characteristics is the large effort dedicated to the
quality assurance (QA) of the calibrated and imaged data products offered to
the astronomical community. The Data Management Group (DMG), in charge of the
data processing, review, and delivery of the ALMA data, consists of
approximately 60 experts in data reduction, from the ALMA Regional Centers
(ARCs) and the Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO), distributed in fourteen countries.
With a throughput of more than 3,000 datasets per year, meeting the goal of
delivering the pipeline-able data products within 30 days after data
acquisition is a huge challenge.
  This paper presents (a) the history of data processing at ALMA, (b) the
challenges our team had and is still facing, (c) the methodology followed to
mitigate the operational risks, (d) the ongoing optimization initiatives, (e)
the current data processing status, (f) the strategy which is being followed so
that, in a few Cycles from now, a team of approximately 10 data reducers (DRs)
at JAO can process and review some 80% of the datasets collected during an
observing cycle, and, finally, (g) the important role of the ARCs for
processing the remaining datasets.
