Manufacturers and suppliers
A factory runs on flow, but the sites it supplies run on programmes someone else sets. Between the two sit design release, long-lead materials, production, transport and installation.
The decisions a manufacturer faces
Product, offsite and modular manufacturers commit capacity and materials ahead of orders that depend on other people's programmes.
- Production capacity
- How much to build, staff and tool for, and when to scale from first unit to series
- Demand uncertainty
- How to plan when release dates and volumes move with the sites you supply
- Resource use
- Where materials, labour and long-lead items are tied up waiting
- Supply chain performance
- Which stage between factory and site sets the pace
Where problems tend to arise
Wherever one stage waits on another, time and money build up. The stage that holds everything up is rarely the same on the first unit as it is once production is in series, so a plan built around the early constraint can be wrong by the time volumes arrive. The time between the factory and the site is where much of a programme is won or lost.
How we help
One that you can rerun as volumes and inputs change.
Production and supply chain flow maps each stage from design release through manufacture and logistics to installation, sets time working against time waiting, and names the stage that sets the pace and where it moves as you scale. Where the question is wider, such as how capacity responds to different demand scenarios, systems modelling and simulation explores the options and states the assumptions behind each.
Manufacturers are often brought in early on a scheme. That should let the people who make the thing shape the design while it can still change, but it often drifts into pricing risk instead of reducing it. Independent strategic and operational advisory and process and organisational improvement help set the purpose, success criteria, decision gateways and evidence rules before anyone is appointed. Our insight Early Involvement That Actually Works sets out how.
Worked example: from first unit to series
Our small modular reactor example traces a factory-built product from design release to first power, across six stages: design release, long-lead forgings, module factory, module logistics, installation, and commissioning to first power.
At each stage, time spent working is set against time spent waiting, giving the flow efficiency of the whole chain. With illustrative figures, the constraint sits with the long-lead forgings on the first unit and moves to the module factory once the build is in series.
The figures are illustrative placeholders and make no claim about any real programme. What carries over is the method: map the chain, find the stage that sets the pace, and see how it moves as production scales. Illustrative model
Questions
We make products and modules, not buildings. Is this for us?
Yes. Our production and supply chain flow work suits anyone whose programme depends on what happens between the factory and the site, and manufacturers and suppliers are central to that. The method follows a product from design release through the factory and logistics to installation.
Do we have to move our data into a new system?
No. We work with the systems you already run, from finance and resourcing to schedules and materials, and connect what a given question needs.
Are the figures in the reactor example real?
No, and the example says so. It uses illustrative placeholder figures and is there to show the method.
Talk to us about a line, product or route
We start from how the work flows today.
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