Assembly & Miltech

Metalworking and mechanical engineering operations often run as high-mix, route-dependent production with strong constraints driven by machines, tooling, and skilled labor.

factory.online helps metal plants increase throughput, reduce WIP, and improve delivery performance by combining constraint-based planning with real execution visibility.

Specific challenges in metal & mechanical plants:

• Routing variability: each job follows unique operations; rework/inspection loops change routing dynamically.
• Bottleneck drift: constraints move between machining, heat treatment, finishing, QA, and dispatch depending on mix.
• Setup-dependent scheduling: tooling changes, fixture availability, CNC program readiness, and setup families.
• Tooling and gauge constraints: limited special tools, fixtures, measuring equipment, and calibration windows.
• Skilled labor constraints: dispatching must respect operator skills, shift patterns, and certification requirements.
• External processing: subcontracted operations (coating, heat treat) break the plan and hide WIP.
• Quality gates and inspections: hold/release cycles cause unpredictable queues and lead-time growth.
• Manual reporting and weak feedback: missing actual start/finish times prevents accurate capacity planning.
• Costing gaps: actual cycle times, scrap, and downtime not captured reliably.

**What factory.online delivers:

• High-mix routings overload one bottleneck machine → APS sequences finite capacity across work centres and alternative machines, so the constraint sets the pace instead of blocking it.
• Jobs disappear between machining, subcontract and assembly → WIP tracking with subcontract stages shows where every part is and how long it has been waiting.
• Delivery dates are promised from gut feeling → RCCP and what-if simulation validate the date against real machine calendars, shifts and holidays before you confirm the order.
• Real cost per part is unknown until it is too late → actual costing collects machine time, setup, scrap and rework per operation and compares it with the standard.
• Tooling and material shortages surface on the shift start → MRPII plans materials and tooling from the released schedule and flags gaps days ahead.