Manufacturing Hero

Manufacturing

Inventory & materials management

Ensuring the right amount of raw materials, WIP (Work in Progress), and finished goods are available at all times—neither overstocking nor running out. This process includes everything from tracking incoming resources to auditing stock levels.

Inventory Materials Management
Step 1
Track Inventory Levels
Tracking stock in real time means knowing how much raw material, WIP (Work in Progress), and finished products are on hand at any moment. Manually, this can involve walking through the warehouse, verifying SKU counts in spreadsheets, and visually checking bins. This approach is prone to inaccuracies, time delays, and human error, leading to costly stockouts or over-purchasing. By automating with systems like Fishbowl Inventory or NetSuite, you gain real-time visibility and can drastically reduce labor hours spent on manual checks. AI-based optical scanning or RFID reads can feed the data to Emma, ensuring 24/7 accuracy with minimal oversight.
Step 2
Automate Reorder Points
Setting reorder thresholds prevents production delays caused by missing critical materials. Without automation, workers rely on guesswork or outdated spreadsheets to flag low inventory, often missing the mark. This leads to production halts or emergency orders at premium shipping rates. Automated triggers—available in Katana MRP and Odoo Inventory—integrate with Emma’s AI to create purchase requisitions the moment stock levels dip below a predefined threshold. This not only eliminates guesswork but also significantly cuts down on expedited freight costs.
Step 3
Receive & Inspect Materials
When raw materials arrive, staff must check them for defects or mismatches, record the batch number, and place them in correct locations. Doing this by hand is time-consuming and can result in mislabeled or lost inventory if logs aren’t updated promptly. Software like Unleashed or Zoho Inventory can integrate with Emma’s vision-based system: Emma uses OCR to read packing slips, matches them to open POs, and flags any discrepancies immediately. This reduces return-and-replace cycles and ensures materials are properly shelved.
Step 4
Manage WIP Inventory
During production, materials move across various stages. Without real-time tracking, managers might schedule production only to find mid-stage components missing. E2 MFG and FactoryFour can interface with Emma to automatically update usage details and highlight shortages. By keeping WIP data accurate, you avoid production bottlenecks, last-minute part hunts, and unplanned downtime. Overall, this step saves countless hours historically spent on manual confirmations across different workstations.
Step 5
Control Finished Goods Inventory
Storing finished products in the right locations impacts order fulfillment speed. Manual methods can cause mislabeled goods, delayed shipments, and unhappy customers. Using SAP WMS or Epicor, Emma updates product logs, ensures items are placed correctly, and handles the scheduling of shipping or warehouse transfers. This level of organization shortens lead times and bolsters on-time delivery performance.
Step 6
Perform Regular Stock Audits
Regular cycle counts detect and correct discrepancies. Traditionally, this is a paper-heavy task involving physical checks, data entry, and a swirl of spreadsheets. Oracle NetSuite and QuickBooks Enterprise allow Emma to cross-reference scanned data against inventory records, automatically generating variance reports. You minimize count errors, reduce shrinkage, and free up employees from after-hours stock counting sessions.

Production scheduling & planning

Coordinating what gets made, when, and in what quantity—balancing demand forecasts, lead times, and resource availability. Effective scheduling is vital to maximizing throughput and reducing idle resources.

Production Scheduling Planning
1
Forecast Demand
Gathering historical sales data, tracking market trends, and integrating with sales forecasts can be laborious when done manually. Human planners often rely on spreadsheets, which risk calculation errors. AI-based tools like Oracle Demantra or Microsoft Dynamics 365 can feed data to Emma, which analyzes patterns and suggests the most accurate production plan. By automating this step, you avoid overproduction and unsold inventory or underproduction and lost sales opportunities.
2
Allocate Production Resources
Once demand is forecasted, the next step is assigning machines, labor, and materials to meet production goals. Manually, this might mean flipping through multiple scheduling boards, leading to overlooked bottlenecks. With AI assistance from solutions like APS (Advanced Planning & Scheduling) in Plex or PlanetTogether, Emma reviews machine availability, shift rosters, and deadlines. This holistic overview reduces double-booking, idle machinery, and last-minute schedule reshuffles.
3
Generate Production Orders
Schedulers create formal work orders specifying which product, how many units, and the designated start/end dates. Typically, staff copy data from a master schedule into an ERP. Emma can do this automatically in tools like SAP PP or Infor CloudSuite, reading the scheduling output and populating the necessary fields. This eliminates duplicate data entry and drastically cuts the risk of introducing typos, saving hours each week.
4
Track Execution & Progress
Operators update progress on paper or shared documents, which can be slow and prone to errors. By integrating Emma with real-time shop floor data collection systems, you ensure every production run’s status is updated promptly. Tools such as ShopVue or Prodsmart feed machine data into Emma, enabling managers to see actual vs. planned progress without waiting for shift-end reports.
5
Manage Exceptions & Delays
No matter how perfect the plan, unforeseen breakdowns or material shortages occur. Manually re-planning can be nerve-wracking, especially under time pressure. Emma can automatically alert managers and adjust the schedule in MRP systems like MRPeasy, reassigning tasks to available machines, recalculating resource needs, and sending updates to relevant teams. This agility reduces downtime and keeps production on track.

Quality control & inspection

Ensuring products meet set specifications and regulatory standards. In manufacturing, quality checks are critical at various stages: incoming raw materials, during production, and final inspection.

Quality Control Inspection
Step 1
Define Inspection Criteria
Quality parameters—like dimensions, tolerances, or composition—are often documented in scattered PDFs or spreadsheets. Manual retrieval delays lead to confusion or missed checks. Emma automates this por centralizing data in systems like IQMS or MasterControl, retrieving the exact specs needed for each product or part, and updating relevant checklists immediately.
Step 2
Schedule Routine Inspections
Different stages (raw material intake, in-process, final QA) require routine checks. Doing this via email reminders or sticky notes leads to inconsistency. Tools like Adaptive Quality or CAMSTAR can generate inspection schedules and feed them to Emma. This ensures no step is overlooked, which mitigates scrap and rework that might result from late or missed inspections.
Step 3
Record & Evaluate Results
Manual logging in paper forms can lead to lost data and time spent retyping the information into a central database. With Emma’s OCR capability, data from checklists or measurement devices flows directly into your QMS (Quality Management System). This immediate recording in solutions like ETQ or Q-Pulse helps managers identify trends, spot variations, and take corrective actions proactively.
Step 4
Handle Non-Conformities & CAPA
When a product fails inspection, it triggers a non-conformance report (NCR) and possibly a Corrective and Preventive Action (CAPA). Manually, staff must fill forms, email them around, and track resolution steps. Emma automates the entire CAPA workflow in integrated solutions like Arena PLM or TrackWise, reducing time to resolution. This also increases accountability—everyone knows who’s responsible for the next step.
Step 5
Generate Compliance Documentation
Regulatory bodies (FDA, ISO, etc.) often require rigorous record-keeping. Emma can compile daily or weekly QA data, attach relevant inspection forms, and store them in repositories like SharePoint or an ERP’s document library. This step can consume hours for human staff; Emma completes it flawlessly, ensuring no data is lost and audits are a breeze.

Order processing & fulfillment

The lifecycle of receiving customer orders, confirming availability, packing, and shipping goods. Efficiency here impacts both customer satisfaction and revenue.

Order Processing Fulfillment
1
Capture Incoming Orders
Orders may arrive via email, EDI (Electronic Data Interchange), or online portals. Manually copying order details into the ERP is slow and error-prone. Emma retrieves these orders from systems like Magento, Shopify, or EDI transactions, and automatically enters them into ERP solutions such as SAP SD or Salesforce. This immediate capture reduces the chance of losing or misreading orders.
2
Check Stock & Availability
Before committing to a delivery date, you must verify if items are available. Doing so manually can involve rummaging through multiple systems or warehouse calls. With AI-based automation, Emma checks inventory in real time via systems like NetSuite, cross-references scheduled production runs, and calculates the earliest ship date. This significantly cuts phone calls and back-and-forth emails between sales, planning, and the warehouse.
3
Price & Discount Verification
Manufacturing companies often apply varied pricing tiers, bulk discounts, or promotional rates. If done by a person flipping through spreadsheets, confusion or mistakes can occur. Emma references the master pricing list in solutions like Sage 300 or Epicor, ensuring each line item matches the correct discount bracket. This step prevents undercharges or overcharges, maintaining profit margins and customer trust.
4
Pick, Pack & Ship
A warehouse picker typically prints a pick list, hunts for items, then manually updates the system. Emma can auto-generate digital pick lists or labels in ShipStation or Fishbowl, track scanning events via barcodes, and confirm shipments to the ERP. This streamlined flow reduces the time spent searching for items and prevents shipping the wrong product or quantity.
5
Send Order Confirmations & Invoices
Customers expect timely confirmations and invoices. Doing this by hand for each order is a massive time sink. Instead, Emma merges data from the ERP (order details) with an email template in Outlook or Gmail and sends it automatically, attaching PDF invoices generated by software like QuickBooks or Zoho Books. This cuts hours of manual emailing and fosters prompt payment cycles.

Procurement & Supplier Management

Sourcing raw materials, components, or services from third-party vendors and ensuring timely delivery at optimal cost.

Procurement Supplier Management
Choosing suppliers often involves scanning references, verifying certifications, or analyzing past performance. Manually, it’s easy to overlook crucial data or vendor constraints. Emma integrates with Jaggaer or Coupa to pull vendor scores, risk factors, and compliance details, quickly filtering out subpar candidates. This step conserves countless hours typically spent on research and phone calls.
Once a department needs certain materials, they create a purchase request. Without automation, this might get stuck in an email chain. Emma routes purchase requisitions through SAP MM or Oracle Procurement, notifies approvers, and logs approvals electronically. This avoids lost requests, drastically accelerating the requisition-to-approval cycle and reducing costly delays.
After approval, staff typically copy details into official PO documents. Doing so by hand introduces typos or quantity mismatches. Emma seamlessly fills out POs in systems like Microsoft Dynamics 365 or ProcurementExpress, double-checking line items and sending them to suppliers automatically. This eliminates the “copy-paste” treadmill and ensures accuracy.
Monitoring on-time delivery, quality, and pricing consistency is key to good relationships. Manual tracking can overlook patterns like frequent late deliveries. Emma fetches data from GRNs (Goods Receipt Notes) in the ERP, calculates supplier on-time metrics, and flags any performance drops. Software like Ariba or Ivalua can integrate to generate performance dashboards for quick decision-making.
Suppliers send invoices after dispatching goods. Humans would then manually compare each invoice to the corresponding PO and delivery records. Emma matches them automatically, approves correct invoices in AvidXchange or Tipalti, and schedules payment. This reduces friction and errors, plus eliminates delayed or duplicate payments.

Maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO)

Upkeep of machinery, equipment, and facilities to avoid unplanned downtime and extend asset life cycles. In manufacturing, MRO is vital because a single machine failure can halt an entire line.

Maintenance Repair Overhaul
Manufacturers maintain detailed records of assets (machinery, tools, vehicles). Doing so manually on spreadsheets can lead to lost track of critical maintenance schedules. Emma can centralize asset data in IBM Maximo or Fiix, ensuring each asset’s usage hours, service history, and location are up to date. This eliminates guesswork on when an asset was last serviced.
Maintenance events typically follow usage hours or calendar intervals. Humans often rely on overdue checklists or vague reminders. Emma reads machine usage logs from SCADA or IoT systems, compares them with recommended intervals, and automatically schedules maintenance tasks in eMaint or SAP PM. Preventive maintenance drastically reduces downtime by catching issues early.
Once maintenance is due, managers must issue work orders specifying tasks, parts needed, and deadlines. Doing so manually may result in missed tasks or incomplete information. Emma compiles the necessary details, creates a digital work order in solutions like UpKeep or IFS, and assigns it to the relevant technician. This step alone saves an enormous amount of coordination time.
MRO also requires ensuring spare parts and consumables are available. Manually tracking spare inventory is prone to oversight. With Emma’s help, data from usage logs is compared to known consumption rates in Infor EAM. If stocks run low, Emma triggers purchase requests, preventing a scenario where a breakdown can’t be fixed due to missing parts.
After each maintenance job, the technician’s notes, replaced parts, and updated asset status must be recorded. Relying on forms and re-keying data is labor-intensive. Emma can scan technician reports (paper or digital) using OCR, then store them in the asset’s history in CMMS solutions. This robust history is invaluable for audits, warranty claims, or compliance checks.

Product Lifecycle Management (PLM)

Creating standardized or bespoke legal agreements—ranging from NDAs and supplier contracts to partnership agreements—requires heavy drafting work and frequent reuse of standard clauses.

Product Lifecycle Management
Step 1
Design & Engineering Data Management
Early design stages often involve CAD drawings, BOM (Bill of Materials) data, and engineering specs in separate systems. Manually correlating them can result in mismatches. Emma links these documents in PLM software like Arena or PTC Windchill, ensuring any design update triggers a BOM revision. This synchronization prevents building products with outdated specs.
Step 2
Change Management (ECOs/ECRs)
Engineering Change Orders (ECOs) or Requests (ECRs) specify modifications to parts or assemblies. Manual change processes risk miscommunication. Emma routes ECO documents for digital approvals, updates relevant departments automatically, and archives old versions. Tools like Dassault Systèmes ENOVIA or Siemens Teamcenter simplify tracking of these changes across global teams.
Step 3
Prototyping & Validation
Prototypes pass through multiple hands for testing. In a manual workflow, collecting feedback can be scattered (emails, spreadsheets, lab notebooks). Emma centralizes test results, pictures, or scanned checklists in Oracle Agile PLM or Autodesk Fusion Lifecycle, reducing duplication and ensuring every improvement is documented. This clarity accelerates iteration cycles.
Step 4
Release to Production
Once a design is finalized, releasing BOMs, routings, and instructions to production is critical. Doing so by hand may involve emailing PDFs or physically delivering drawings. Emma auto-updates the ERP (e.g., SAP PP or Infor LN) with new item codes, quantities, and routing instructions, ensuring production lines start building the correct version right away.
Step 5
End-of-Life & Phase-Out
When a product is discontinued, spares may still need support. Manuals, part lists, and final stock must be carefully tracked. Emma can automate the entire process, from generating final buy orders of critical components to updating marketing materials. Without automation, staff risk missing crucial tasks, incurring leftover stock or service disruptions.

Logistics & Shipping

Coordinating the movement of raw materials and finished goods across different locations, ensuring timely and cost-effective delivery to customers or next-stage plants.

Logistics Shipping
Step 1
Carrier Selection & Rate Shopping
Finding the best shipping method (truck, rail, air) can be a daily chore if done via manual calls or multiple websites. Emma taps into TMS (Transportation Management Systems) like MercuryGate or BlueJay, comparing available carriers, rates, and transit times. This saves hours daily and locks in the best shipping deals.
Step 2
Label & Document Generation
Shipments often require specialized labels, packing slips, or export documents. Printing these by hand from separate software invites confusion. Emma automatically populates shipping documents in UPS WorldShip, FedEx Ship Manager, or specialized LTL forms, ensuring the correct templates for each region or regulatory requirement.
Step 3
Real-Time Shipment Tracking
Customers and sales teams expect up-to-date shipment statuses. Without automation, staff must check carrier portals and manually copy tracking info. With Emma integrated into the TMS, tracking data flows directly back to the ERP (like Microsoft Dynamics or Infor M3), triggering status notifications to customers. This improves transparency and reduces inbound “Where is my order?” calls.
Step 4
Consolidation & Route Optimization
For large shipments, consolidating multiple orders into fewer trucks can slash freight costs. Manually analyzing routes and capacity is tedious. Emma uses route optimization software like Descartes or Route4Me to calculate the most efficient delivery sequence. This lowers fuel consumption, shipping fees, and carbon footprint.
Step 5
Proof of Delivery & Reconciliation
Drivers or couriers provide POD (Proof of Delivery) documents upon final drop-off. In manual workflows, these might get lost or delayed. Emma scans and logs POD documents automatically, closing out orders in the ERP. This swift reconciliation helps finance finalize invoicing or mark shipments as complete, improving cash flow predictability.

Regulatory compliance & documentation

Adhering to industry regulations (e.g., ISO standards, FDA requirements, environmental laws), providing complete traceability and documentation for audits.

Customer Support Returns Management
1
Identify Applicable Regulations
Different products or markets may invoke varied laws—EU standards for chemicals, FDA for medical devices, etc. Manually comparing internal processes with multiple regulations is overwhelming. Emma’s AI can search through regulation databases (like UL or official government portals), highlight relevant sections, and compile them for compliance officers in solutions like MasterControl.
2
Document Control & Versioning
Each procedure or work instruction must be controlled, with a revision history. Manual version control can cause employees to use outdated documents, risking compliance failure. Emma can store and track these documents in SharePoint, Google Drive, or dedicated QMS systems, ensuring every user references the correct version with every update meticulously logged.
3
Audits & Certification
External or internal auditors require extensive records—training logs, supplier qualifications, traceability data. Gathering these from multiple sources is time-consuming. Emma aggregates the data from ERP, QMS, and HR systems, then assembles it into the required format. This drastically shortens the audit prep timeline, letting staff focus on actual compliance rather than scouring for files.
4
Traceability & Batch Records
Many manufacturing fields (food, pharma, aerospace) must track raw material batches from supplier to finished product. Manual input or searching spreadsheets fosters errors. Emma updates and retrieves batch records in SAP QM or IFS Applications every time a new lot is processed or shipped, guaranteeing quick traceability if issues or recalls arise.
5
Compliance Reporting
Frequent or periodic reporting to regulators is mandatory. Under manual processes, staff scramble to gather data and fill forms, risking incomplete submissions or missed deadlines. Emma automatically compiles relevant production data, merges it into standard reporting templates (e.g., EPA or OSHA forms), and flags anomalies for review. This ensures timely, accurate submissions with minimal human intervention.

Customer support & returns management

Handling inbound inquiries, product issues, returns, and warranties. A smooth returns process and responsive support can significantly improve customer loyalty in manufacturing.

Customer Support Returns Management
Support queries often arrive via phone or email, and staff must manually assign tickets. Emma watches email queues in systems like Zendesk or Freshdesk, automatically generating tickets and assigning categories (billing, technical issue, shipping) to the right department. This consistent categorization helps prioritize urgent problems quickly.
When products are defective or mismatched, a formal RMA process ensures correct returns handling. Manually creating RMA forms or instructing the customer can be slow. Emma integrates with the ERP (e.g., SAP SD or Dynamics 365), validates purchase details, and auto-generates shipping labels for returns. This consistent approach avoids returns slipping through the cracks.
Some returns might be unnecessary if the issue can be solved remotely (like minor assembly confusion). Typically, staff rummage through PDFs or instructions to guide the customer. Emma quickly pulls relevant troubleshooting steps from the knowledge base, merges them into a standardized email or chat response, and logs any back-and-forth. This ensures consistent, high-quality support and faster resolution.
Once the product arrives, a technician assesses it. Without automation, updating the ERP with the repair status is manual overhead. Emma logs repair details, updates the system, and notifies the customer of progress. Integrations with ServiceMax or ServiceNow streamline rework or replacement parts ordering. Customers receive real-time updates, boosting satisfaction.
Determining if the return is under warranty or if a credit note is needed is a detail-intensive task. Emma cross-references the product’s purchase date, warranty terms, and inspection reports in your ERP. If eligible, Emma issues the credit or schedules a replacement. This end-to-end loop drastically cuts the average resolution time and keeps your finance teams aligned.