Who it’s for
It fits especially well in shops doing machining, metal fabrication, cutting, component manufacturing, moulds or custom machinery — and also in food and agri-food plants and other batch factories, with changeovers, shelf-life constraints and shared lines. Roughly 20 to 250 people; they tend to share the same pattern:
- Many different orders and multi-operation routings.
- Alternative machines for the same operation.
- Committed due dates and priorities that shift.
- Setup changes between product families.
- Frequent rush jobs that break the plan.
- One person spending hours reshuffling Excel.
Signs you need it
- Someone loses hours every week reshuffling the plan by hand.
- Rush jobs blow up the due dates of every other order.
- You don’t know the real impact of accepting a new order.
- The ERP plan looks nothing like what happens on the floor.
What it isn’t (yet)
To set expectations: it isn’t built for continuous processes (chemicals, refining), it doesn’t directly control PLCs or machines, and it doesn’t replace the ERP. It needs some minimal routing and timing data.
FAQ
Does it fit my industry?
If you build to order with multi-operation routings, alternative machines and committed dates, it fits. Outside that (continuous process, very repetitive large series) there are better-suited tools.
Is there a minimum size?
It works best when there’s enough complexity that planning hurts — usually from about a dozen resources and several operations per order.