Operations & Transformation Consulting
We find out what is actually wrong before anyone writes a line of code. Because the most expensive mistake in this market is automating a process that should have been fixed instead.
What is manufacturing operations consulting?
Manufacturing operations consulting is the structured assessment of how a plant actually runs — its processes, losses, data flows and systems — followed by a prioritized plan to improve it. Done properly it produces a costed roadmap that says what to fix first, what to build, what to buy, and what to leave alone.
What we actually 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 ones who will 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 actually come from, traced to a machine and a reason code rather than a monthly average nobody can source. Includes establishing whether your current OEE number means anything.
Digital maturity assessment
What is digitized, what is on paper, what is in a spreadsheet somebody maintains privately, and what data exists but never reaches a decision. Honest about where you are, not scored against a marketing framework.
System landscape review
Every system in the estate, what it holds, who uses it, and where the integration gaps are. Including the modules you paid for and never turned on, which we find on most sites.
Technology selection
Every option scored against your process rather than its demo — platforms we hold partnerships for, our own solution, and a bespoke build, on the same sheet and clearly labelled. The fee does not change based on which one wins.
Build, buy or neither
For each capability on the roadmap: configure an existing platform, build it bespoke, or fix the process and skip the software. The third answer is more common than the market admits.
What you actually receive.
Everything is yours to keep and yours to take elsewhere. The roadmap is the product, not a lead magnet for the build.
- Current-state operations map — how work runs today, by shift, with the losses located
- Data flow diagram — every point where information stops moving, and what it costs you
- System landscape — what you own, what it does, where the gaps are
- Prioritized roadmap — sequenced by impact on your operation, with dependencies
- Build-versus-buy analysis — per capability, with reasoning you can challenge
- Costed business case — what each phase costs and what it returns
- Target architecture — how the pieces connect to what you already run
Common questions.
When that is the right answer, yes. A meaningful share of what gets sold as a digitization problem is a process problem wearing a software costume — an unbalanced line, an unclear ownership boundary, a review meeting with no decision rights. Automating those makes them faster, not better.
Because it is priced as its own engagement rather than as a step towards a sale. Our audit fee is the same whether you go on to license our solution, buy a platform we implement for you, commission a bespoke build, or do none of it. An assessment given away free has to end somewhere that pays for it; one you have paid for can end wherever the operation actually points.
No. The roadmap is written so your own engineers could execute from it, and some clients do exactly that, or take it to another firm. That happens, it is legitimate, and it is a reasonable outcome for a piece of work you commissioned and paid for.
Less than you would 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 — not from workshops that pull your team off the line.
Start with the audit, not the software.
A fixed-scope engagement. We walk your floor, map where data breaks down, and hand you a costed roadmap — whether or not you build any of it with us.