Resources
Operations automation resources
Practical writing for people responsible for an operation: what to automate first, how to digitise a process so it survives, how to build reporting nobody argues with, and when to buy a package instead of building anything.
- 13 articles across 8 categories
- Written for plant heads, owners and operations managers
- No vendor jargon, no invented statistics
- Every article ends with something you can act on
Browse
Eight categories
All articles by category
Manufacturing Automation
Automating the handoffs between departments in a factory, and where to start.
How to Automate Manufacturing Workflows
The handoffs between departments cost more than any single department's inefficiency. Here is the order to fix them in.
4 min read
How Manufacturing Companies Can Reduce Manual Work
Most manual work in a factory is not on the shop floor. It is the coordination around it — and that is the part you can remove.
3 min read
Business Process Automation
Turning manual processes — approvals, forms, registers — into workflows with owners and rules.
How to Digitize Manual Business Processes
Digitising a process is not scanning a form. It is deciding who owns each step and what must be true before it can move.
4 min read
How to Automate Purchase Approvals
Most approval delay is not caused by slow approvers. It is caused by nobody knowing it is their turn.
3 min read
How to Automate Inventory Workflows
Inventory accuracy is a design problem, not a discipline problem. Make the work update the stock.
3 min read
Workflow Automation
What a workflow actually consists of, and how to tell whether a process is worth automating.
Operations Management
Why operational visibility degrades as a company grows, and what restores it.
Signs Your Factory Has Outgrown Excel
Spreadsheets fail slowly and without warning. These are the nine symptoms that show up first — and the two cases where you should keep them.
4 min read
Why Manufacturing Companies Lose Visibility Across Departments
Visibility is not lost because people stop communicating. It is lost because the company outgrows the range of a conversation.
3 min read
Digital Transformation
Phased, realistic plans for digitising a plant without a transformation programme.
Manufacturing Software
How production, quality and material systems are put together, and in what order.
Data & Dashboards
Building management reporting that survives being questioned in a meeting.
ERP & System Integration
Deciding what to buy, what to build, and how to connect the two without a second system of record.
Next step
Reading about it is the easy part
If one of these articles described your operation a little too accurately, the useful next step is walking us through the process it described.