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Manufacturing Operations & Transformation Consulting
We find out what is actually wrong before anyone writes code, because the most expensive mistake in manufacturing technology is automating a process that should have been fixed.
What is manufacturing operations consulting?
A structured assessment of how a plant actually runs, followed by a prioritised plan to improve it.
Done properly, it covers processes, losses, data flows and systems, and produces a costed roadmap that says what to fix first, what to build, what to buy and what to leave alone.
What we do on site
Consulting in this market has a reputation for producing slide decks. Ours produces a document your engineering team can execute from, because we are the people who will be asked to execute it.
Operations and process audit
We walk the floor across shifts and map how work actually happens against how the SOP says it does. Changeovers get timed. Handovers get watched. The gap between the two is usually where the roadmap starts.
Loss and OEE analysis
Where availability, performance and quality losses come from, traced to a machine and a reason code rather than a monthly average. The result is an OEE improvement plan, ranked by the losses worth recovering first, and an honest view of whether your current OEE figure means anything. Our OEE guide explains the method.
Digital maturity assessment
What is digitised, what is on paper, what lives in a spreadsheet someone maintains privately, and what data exists but never reaches a decision. The result is an Industry 4.0 readiness picture built from evidence on the floor, not from a questionnaire.
System landscape review
Every system in the estate, what it holds, who uses it and where the integration gaps are, including modules that were paid for and never switched on.
Technology and MES selection
Every option scored against your process rather than its demo: MES and other platforms we work with, our own solution and a bespoke build, on the same sheet and clearly labelled.
Build, buy or neither
For each capability on the roadmap: configure a platform, build bespoke, or fix the process and skip the software. The third answer is more common than the market admits.
What you receive
Everything is yours to keep and yours to take elsewhere. The roadmap is the product, not a lead-in to the build.
- Current-state operations mapHow work runs today, by shift, with the losses located.
- Data-flow diagramEvery point where information stops moving, and what that costs you.
- System landscapeWhat you own, what it does and where the gaps are.
- Digital transformation roadmapPrioritised by impact on your operation, with dependencies shown.
- Build-versus-buy analysisPer capability, with reasoning you can challenge.
- Costed business caseWhat each phase costs and what it returns.
- Target architectureHow the pieces connect to what you already run, set out against ISA-95.
Common questions
Will you tell us not to buy software?
When that is the right answer, yes. Much of what is sold as a digitisation problem is a process problem: an unbalanced line, an unclear ownership boundary, a review meeting with no decision rights. Automating those makes them faster, not better.
How is this different from a free vendor assessment?
It is priced as its own piece of work rather than as a step towards a sale. The audit fee is the same whether you go on to license our solution, buy a platform we implement, commission a bespoke build or do none of it.
Do we have to build with you afterwards?
No. The roadmap is written so that your own engineers could execute it, or another firm could. You are free to take it either way.
How much time does this need from our people?
Less than you might expect, and mostly from supervisors rather than management. We work around production; most of what we need comes from watching shifts run normally and reading data that already exists.
Are you a consulting firm or a software company?
Both, by design. The operations side of the team leads the audit and owns the roadmap; the engineering side builds what it calls for, and both are involved from the first week. Firms that are only one or the other are why advice and delivery so often come apart.
Start with the audit, not the software.
A fixed-scope diagnosis of where your plant loses information, what it costs you and what to fix first. The roadmap is yours to keep, whoever builds it.