Field notes
Notes from the plant floor.
How process manufacturers actually run lead-to-cash: master data that holds up, lots and shelf life, scheduling, procurement, and what an AI assistant can genuinely do for a plant. Written from the work of building Aourix with real factories.
Shelf life, allergens and the recall you hope never happens
Food plants carry three traceability obligations soap plants do not. What each one requires from your records, and the mock recall that tells you whether they work.
- 3 min read
Goods receipt: the five minutes that decide whether your invoice matches
A three-way match only works if the receipt is recorded accurately at the gate. What to capture, what to reject, and why partial deliveries cause most invoice disputes.
procurementinventory - 3 min read
Implementations do not fail at go-live. They fail at master data.
The system is rarely the reason a rollout stalls. Item codes, units, suppliers and opening stock are, and that work starts months before anyone logs in.
setupmaster data - 3 min read
Twelve questions to ask a manufacturing software vendor before the demo
A demo shows you what a system does well. These questions show you what it does badly — including the ones we would rather you did not ask us.
setupoperations - 3 min read
The dispatch pack: what has to be right before the container moves
Packing list, gate pass, certificate of analysis, incoterm. Which document each party actually needs, and why assembling them after the order is what makes shipments late.
dispatchoperations - 3 min read
Ask your system a question that crosses two departments
The quickest test of whether software is AI-native or has AI bolted on: ask something spanning sales and production. If it needs an export to Excel first, the AI is decoration.
genieai - 4 min read
Scheduling around the bottleneck: planning a plant with one mixer
In most small plants one machine sets the ceiling on output. Scheduling everything else around it is worth more than any efficiency gain elsewhere on the floor.
schedulingproduction - 4 min read
Quotation to sales order: what should carry over, and what should not
Converting a quote should copy the commercial terms and then freeze them. What breaks a plant is prices, quantities and pack forms that stay editable after the customer signs.
quotationssales - 4 min read
Reorder points and safety stock: how much cover a small plant needs
Safety stock is not a number you guess once. It comes from lead time, how much your usage varies, and what a stockout costs. How to set reorder points you can defend.
procurementinventory - 4 min read
Bills of materials: yields, scrap and the numbers a recipe leaves out
A spreadsheet recipe lists ingredients. A bill of materials also carries yield, scrap and pack components — which is why one costs a batch correctly and the other does not.
productionmaster data - 4 min read
Categories and units: the ten minutes that decide whether your item data survives
Untyped or unitless categories are the top reason a stock count looks wrong months later. How to set up item categories so inventory, production and procurement behave.
master datainventory - 4 min read
Lots, retest dates and FEFO for bulk products: keeping the paperwork honest
Export buyers want a lot number, a retest date and a certificate of analysis with every shipment. How those three should be produced, and why FEFO should advise rather than block.
qualityinventory - 4 min read
The lead-to-cash loop: one record, six stages, no re-keying
Every manufacturer runs the same six-step loop from enquiry to cash. Naming it explains why plants drown in re-typing, and what changes when one record moves through every stage.
lead to cashoperations