Inventory
Raw material, work in progress and finished goods
Stock is held with its supplier, cost, batch, location and state, and distinguishes what is available from what is already committed.
Why it matters here A factory has at least three inventories that most systems treat as one. Committing a delivery date against the wrong one is how promises break.
In practice Six tonnes in the store, four committed to confirmed orders, two genuinely available. The delivery commitment is made against the two.
Work
Work orders, batches and job cards
Production work is held as records with an owner, a line, a state and a history, connected to the material it consumes and the order it fulfils.
Why it matters here The work order is the link between a customer commitment and the material that will satisfy it. Without it, planning is guesswork.
In practice Batch 214 is a record connecting the raw material issued, the line that ran it, the inspection it is held on and the three dispatches waiting on it.
Workflows
Inspections, holds and approvals
Quality checks, holds, deviations, purchase approvals and dispatch clearances move through defined steps with an owner and a recorded decision.
Why it matters here Quality is the step most likely to be handled by conversation, and it is the step that most often blocks everything downstream.
In practice A second inspection failure holds the batch and immediately marks the dependent orders as blocked, with the reason attached.
Orders
Customer orders and commitments
Orders are records with their items, quantities, committed dates, production state and dispatch history.
Why it matters here The committed date is the promise the whole factory is organised around, and it should be visible against the work that will meet it.
In practice Fourteen orders past their committed date, each showing the step it is stuck at rather than just the number of days lost.
Suppliers
Vendors, job workers and transporters
Suppliers are relationships with purchase orders, delivery performance, material issued to them and outstanding balances.
Why it matters here Inbound reliability determines outbound reliability. A factory that cannot measure its suppliers is absorbing their variance.
In practice A vendor’s average delay of four days is visible against the orders it affected, which changes the conversation at the next negotiation.
Logistics
Dispatch, vehicles and delivery
Dispatch is tracked against the orders it fulfils, with vehicles, routes and delivery confirmation on the record.
Why it matters here A dispatch that leaves without documentation, or a delivery nobody confirmed, becomes a receivables problem two months later.
In practice Three vehicles queued at the loading bay, each against specific orders, with the goods either cleared or held.
Locations
Plants, lines, stores and warehouses
Locations roll into organisations and organisations into the business, with permissions, reporting and exceptions following the same structure.
Why it matters here Multi-plant manufacturers cannot compare anything unless every plant records it the same way.
In practice Throughput, exceptions and on-time performance by plant, from the same records rather than from four differently formatted reports.
People
Operators, supervisors and shifts
Teams, roles and responsibilities are modelled once, and every work record shows who owns it and who last acted on it.
Why it matters here When a step stalls, the useful question is who owns the next action. That should not require asking around.
In practice A held batch shows the supervisor responsible for the next decision, and the escalation path if it is not taken.
Workforce
Assignment, attendance and availability
Who is assigned, who is present and what they completed stay connected to the work they support.
Why it matters here A line short two operators produces less, and that connection should be visible in the production numbers rather than inferred.
In practice Attendance against shift plan on Line 3 sits alongside the output that shift actually produced.
Relationships
Customers behind the orders
Customers are records with their orders, agreed terms, delivery history, quality history and outstanding balances.
Why it matters here A factory that only holds orders can see what is late. A factory that holds customers can see which relationship has absorbed three late deliveries in a row and is about to be lost.
In practice An account whose last four orders all shipped past their committed date is visible as a relationship at risk, not just as four separate exceptions.
Records
Specifications, drawings and test reports
Documents attach to the product, batch or order they belong to, with version history and the same permission model as everything else.
Why it matters here The specification a batch was made against, and the report that cleared it, are needed years later during a complaint or an audit, usually by someone who was not there.
In practice A customer queries a batch shipped eighteen months ago. The drawing revision, the inspection report and the release decision are on the batch record.
Control
Traceability, permissions and audit
One permission model and one audit trail across every record, so every state change carries the person who made it and when.
Why it matters here Traceability is not a reporting feature in manufacturing, it is the ability to answer what went into a batch and who released it. That has to be a property of the records themselves.
In practice A recall enquiry resolves to the material lots consumed, the line that ran them and the person who cleared the batch, from the trail rather than from a reconstruction.
Communication
Shop-floor context on the record
Comments, notifications and activity attach to the work order, batch or delivery they concern.
Why it matters here Most of what a factory knows about why something went wrong is said out loud at a handover and never written down.
In practice The note that a substitute material was used on a batch sits on that batch, where quality will see it rather than hear about it.
Command centre
The plant as it is running
One live view of what is moving, what is blocked, who owns it and what needs attention today.
Why it matters here The morning production meeting exists because no such view exists. Most of that meeting is reconstruction rather than decision.
In practice Orders in flight, orders past date, batches held, material coverage and approvals pending, in one picture that assembles itself.
Reports and analytics
Reports from the production records
Throughput, on-time delivery, rejection rates, material consumption, supplier reliability and order ageing come from the operational records themselves.
Why it matters here Manufacturing reporting is usually a monthly compilation, which is far too slow for decisions taken daily.
In practice Rolling seven-day throughput and exception closure rates, current rather than compiled.
Verity AI
Ask the plant a question
Verity AI answers from your own production, material and order records, respects permissions, and can create assigned follow-ups from what it finds.
Why it matters here The questions worth asking cross four functions at once, which is exactly what makes them hard to answer any other way.
In practice "Which orders are at risk this month, and why?" returns three with their blocking step named, and one instruction creates follow-ups for the owners.