Manufacturing
The Factory Brain.
The orchestration layer between ERP and PLC — the one neither system covers. AI recommends. Humans approve. The PLC executes.
- Posture
- Cloud · Hybrid · On-premise
- Time to value
- 4 to 12+ weeks
- Principle
- AI never replaces the PLC
Where it sits
Human
Approves, overrides, sets priorities
Factory Brain · AI
AI planning · scheduling · optimisation · recommendations
Business & operations
ERP · MES · Inventory · CRM · Purchase · Maintenance · Quality · Dispatch
Deterministic control
SCADA · PLC · CNC · Sensors · Vision systems
Machines
Lines, cells, tooling, plant
Who needs a Factory Brain
If any of these sound familiar.
Schedules built in spreadsheets
Planners re-plan by hand whenever an order or machine changes
Unplanned downtime
Breakdowns found after the line stops, not before
ERP says one thing, the floor another
No layer reconciling plan against actual production
Quality caught late
Defects found at final inspection rather than at the cell
Inventory buffered on instinct
Safety stock covering for forecasts nobody trusts
Expertise walking out the door
Scheduling knowledge held by a handful of people
Industry validationSiemens, ABB and Hitachi all orchestrate above the PLC rather than replacing it — AI predicts and recommends, automation executes, humans approve.
What the Factory Brain does
Seven areas, one planning layer.
AI never replaces the PLC. It makes PLC-driven factories smarter.
Sales
- Demand prediction
- Order prioritisation
- Delivery prediction
- Quote conversion
Inventory
- Stock optimisation
- Raw material alerts
- Dead stock detection
- Reorder points
Production
- Finite capacity scheduling
- Line balancing
- Machine allocation
- Shift planning
Maintenance
- Predictive maintenance
- Planned downtime
- Maintenance windows
- Spare-parts prediction
Quality
- Vision inspection
- Root-cause suggestions
- Rework prediction
- Defect trend analysis
Dispatch
- Truck planning
- Delivery ETA
- Loading optimisation
- Route consolidation
Procurement
- Vendor performance
- Purchase suggestions
- Shortage alerts
- Lead-time forecasting
What it moves
- Less machine idle time
- Better scheduling
- Less scheduling effort
- AI-assisted planning
- Lower inventory carrying cost
- Demand prediction
- Improved on-time delivery
- Dynamic dispatch
Deployment posture
- CloudFastest, usage-based
- HybridOn-premise data, 4–8 weeks
- On-premiseFully in-house, 8–12+ weeks
Manufacturing
Put a planning layer between your ERP and your PLC.
Start with one plant, one bottleneck — scheduling, maintenance or quality — and measure it against the numbers you already report on.