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Factory software development

For operations directors, production managers and plant owners at factories and workshops who need production orders, materials, line schedules, shift records, quality checks and dispatch to live in one system shaped around how their own floor actually runs.

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The problem

What goes wrong today

Where it usually starts

A factory of forty people runs on a planning spreadsheet, a whiteboard by each line and a clipboard per shift.

  • The planner builds next week's schedule from the order book on Friday and prints it; by Tuesday a machine has gone down, two orders have been pulled forward by a customer and the printed plan is fiction, but the operators are still working from it.
  • Material requirements are worked out by the planner's memory of the bill of materials, so a batch starts before anyone notices the supplier delivery is short, and the line stops.

Where it gets harder

Shift logs are handwritten: quantities, downtime and the reason for it, scrawled and transcribed into a spreadsheet the following morning by a supervisor who guesses at the handwriting.

  • Quality checks live on another sheet per batch, and a non-conformance is a note stapled to it.
  • When a customer reports a fault in a batch delivered three months ago, tracing which material lot, which machine, which shift and which inspector were involved takes two days of folder searching.
  • Machine maintenance is done when a machine fails rather than on a schedule, because the schedule is in the maintenance engineer's head.
  • The owner asks for throughput by line this month and gets a figure assembled by hand that nobody will defend.

Scope of the service

What the build covers

A custom factory build normally covers:

  • Production orders With a defined sequence of stages per product and a status at each stage
  • Bills of materials per product and version With material requirements calculated per order and checked against stock before a batch is released
  • Machine and line scheduling with capacity per shift So the planner moves orders on a board rather than a printout and sees the consequence of a breakdown immediately
  • Shift logs captured on a tablet at the line with quantities produced Scrap and downtime against a fixed list of reasons
  • Quality checks per batch with the checks defined per product Results recorded by the inspector and non-conformance records with disposition
  • Batch traceability linking material lots Machines, shifts, operators and inspectors to every batch and dispatch
  • A maintenance schedule per machine with tasks Intervals and completion records
  • Dispatch notes generated from completed orders
  • Dashboards of throughput Downtime and first-pass quality by line and period

How discovery works

Discovery walks the floor with you: how an order becomes a plan, what the stages are for each product family, where materials are stored and counted, which machines constrain capacity, what a shift records today and in what order, which checks each product needs and who signs them off, and what traceability a customer or auditor has asked for. Each becomes a named stage in the scope document: order, plan, materials, produce by stage, check, dispatch.

Deliberately out of scope

  • Purchasing and supplier management beyond recording receipts against material lots, finance and invoicing, and payroll. Where an ERP or accounting system exists it remains the system of record for orders and stock values, and the factory system exchanges orders, consumption and completions with it. The quality module records checks and non-conformances
  • It does not assert that a batch conforms to any standard

When the scope grows

Scoping scenario

A plant with three lines, eleven machines, two shifts, a bill of materials held in an ERP, customer-mandated traceability to material lot and an existing maintenance contractor who wants to update tasks from his own phone is a different build from a single-line workshop, and the scope document will say so.

Deliverables

What you receive

  • Discovery notes from a walk of the floor, a sample of production orders, the current schedule and the shift and quality sheets in use
  • A written scope document naming each stage from order to dispatch, the ERP exchange and what is excluded
  • Design of the planning board, the shift log on a tablet, the quality check form and the batch trace view
  • The build, deployed to your hosting or ours
  • Migration of products, bills of materials, machines, open orders and current material lots from spreadsheets or the ERP, where relevant
  • Dispatch note templates and the ERP exchange set up and reconciled against a sample week
  • Training for the planner, line supervisors, operators, inspectors and the maintenance engineer, with a short written guide
  • Handover material and full ownership of the source code and your data

Process

How a project runs

Each stage maps onto the project view in your client panel. Durations are set in your proposal, never on this page.

  1. Onboarding

    Access to the planning spreadsheet, bills of materials, machine list, shift and quality sheets and any ERP; contacts named for production, quality and maintenance.

    Project stage: Onboarding

  2. Planning

    Discovery with the production manager, a line supervisor, the quality lead and the maintenance engineer; stages per product family, capacity rules and the scope document are agreed with milestones.

    Project stage: Planning

  3. Design

    Clickable designs of the planning board, the shift log on the tablet operators will actually hold, the batch quality form and the trace view.

    Project stage: Design

  4. Development

    Built in stages: products, bills of materials and orders first, then scheduling and shift logs, then quality, traceability, maintenance and dispatch.

    Project stage: Development

  5. Client review

    One line runs a shadow week logging shifts and checks in the system alongside paper, and the planner reschedules a real breakdown on the board.

    Project stage: Client review

  6. Revisions

    Stage sequences, downtime reasons, check definitions and capacity rules are adjusted from the review and re-checked against the scope document.

    Project stage: Revisions

  7. Ready for launch

    Open orders and material lots migrated, tablets set up at each line, the ERP exchange verified against a sample, checklist signed off.

    Project stage: Ready for launch

  8. Delivered

    The floor runs on the new system from the next shift; optional maintenance and hosting continue under their own agreement.

    Project stage: Delivered

Integrations

Commonly integrated

Systems this kind of business usually asks us to connect. Each integration is confirmed during discovery; none is assumed.

  • ERP and accounting systems as the record of sales orders, stock values and purchasing
  • Barcode and label printers for material lots, batches and dispatch labels
  • Machine controllers and sensors supplying counts and running status where lines have them
  • Warehouse and stock systems for material receipts and finished goods
  • Courier and haulier systems receiving dispatch details
  • Quality and calibration systems holding instrument records
  • Email and messaging services for breakdown and shortage alerts

How we would approach it

Worked example

Concept demo

A three-line plant with lot-level traceability

The situation

A plant with three lines and two shifts planned on a spreadsheet, logged shifts on paper and had been asked by a major customer for traceability from finished batch back to material lot.

Why it is a custom build

The reason this needs a custom build is the ERP exchange and the trace: the trace is only as good as the point at which lot consumption is recorded, and that point is specific to how this plant issues material to the line.

The scope we would propose

  • Production orders read from the ERP with stages defined per product family
  • A planning board with capacity per line and shift that shows the knock-on of moving an order
  • Shift logs on a tablet per line with quantity, scrap and downtime reasons from a fixed list
  • Material lots recorded at receipt and consumed against batches so the trace is built as work happens rather than reconstructed afterwards
  • Quality checks defined per product with non-conformance records and disposition
  • A maintenance schedule the external engineer updates from his phone
  • Dispatch notes that send completions back to the ERP

Concept demo: a scoping scenario written to show how we would approach the work. It is not a delivered client project.

Pricing

What affects the price

Every proposal is priced on scope. These are the factors that move it most for this kind of build.

  • Number of lines, machines and shifts, and whether capacity is planned per machine or per line
  • Number of products and the depth and versioning of bills of materials
  • Whether orders, stock and completions exchange with an ERP, and which one
  • Traceability depth required: batch, material lot, machine, operator
  • Quality checks per product and non-conformance workflow
  • Shift log capture on tablets, scanners or from machine controllers
  • Maintenance scheduling and whether external contractors log in
  • Hosting choice: your own hosting or ours

Start from a package

Production tracking package

Production orders by stage, bills of materials and material checks, line scheduling, tablet shift logs with downtime reasons, batch quality checks, traceability, machine maintenance and dispatch notes.

Custom build
View the package

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

How do you decide between a custom build and the package?

Discovery compares your floor with what the production tracking package does through configuration. A plant with a few lines, bills of materials maintained in the system and conventional shift and quality logging usually fits the package. An ERP exchange, machine-level data capture or customer-mandated traceability rules point to custom work, and we say which before anything is quoted.

Does it replace our ERP?

No. The ERP remains the record of sales orders, purchasing and stock values. The factory system takes orders from it, runs the floor, and returns consumption and completions in a form your ERP accepts so nothing is re-keyed.

Does the quality module make us compliant with a standard?

No system can claim that. It records which checks each product requires, the results per batch, who inspected and any non-conformance with its disposition, and keeps the trace. Which standard applies and whether your process meets it is for you and your auditors.

Can operators use it on the line?

Yes. The shift log is designed for a tablet or scanner at the line: start a batch, record quantities and scrap, pick a downtime reason from a list and sign off. Operators see their line and their shift, nothing else.

Who owns the system afterwards?

You do. Source code and all data, including the trace records, are handed over at delivery. Hosting and maintenance are optional, separately agreed and the system can move to another provider.

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Answer a few questions about your business, your current systems and what should change. We reply with a clear, competitive proposal.

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