DECISION INTELLIGENCE ยท MANUFACTURING
Input costs move weeks before margin shows it. One model traces the change through before the pricing window closes, with a forward deployed analyst running it on your data from week one.
The effect surfaces a quarter later. The pricing window closes before that.
Each shift reports differently. The monthly meeting argues the data before it argues solutions.
Below plant level, margin by product is an estimate.
The model starts where the operation lives: production, labor, input costs, throughput. It carries forward to financial consequence, general ledger included.
Every line, shift, product, and entity runs on one set of numbers. When two plants report different ways, the model puts them on the same basis so the numbers can be compared side by side. The analyst configures the model in the categories your business already uses.
When a metric crosses a threshold you set, the flag surfaces before the next morning. The analyst curates the handful that matter.
A supplier reprices. By the time the effect reaches margin, the pricing window has closed. The analyst traces the cost change through to your margins before the window closes. Repricing, mix, and sourcing responses get priced against each other while there is still time to choose.
A renewal sitting on your desk is a ready-made Sprint.
Test a Real Decision: the cost increase on your desk, before it reaches margin.
One line is underperforming, and the monthly meeting turns into an argument about whose numbers are right. Same product, same measure, every line and shift. The analyst shows which line or shift is moving the number. Everyone reads from the same figure.
When the argument shifts to what to do about it, you are choosing between options on numbers nobody disputes. Bring the line everyone argues about to the Sprint.
Test a Real Decision: the line everyone argues about.
Below plant level, the margin by product or order is an estimate nobody fully trusts. The model builds margin up from the operational numbers, in your categories, so you can read it by product, order, and line. You see which parts of the mix carry the margin and which ones drag it.
A quote, a mix shift, or a rate change runs as a scenario before it is signed. Bring the quote you are pricing this month to the Sprint.
Test a Real Decision: the quote you are pricing now.
Several plants or entities each report their own way, and the group view lives in a spreadsheet one person maintains. One model holds every entity on the same basis, so the group figure and the detail underneath come from the same place.
A board pack question stops requiring a rebuild. A Sprint on one consolidated metric shows what the group view looks like on your own entities.
Test a Real Decision: the group-level decision stuck behind four versions of the number.
The forward deployed analyst connects the systems, configures the model in the categories you already use, and stays. The role is full-time and dedicated. You consume finished analysis rather than building it.
AI is the substrate that makes this speed possible. Analysis that would take two analyst-weeks is already live.
No hire to make. No ramp period. No implementation project touching the operation.
The operation runs exactly as it did the day before Predien arrived. Nothing on the floor changes, slows, or waits. Its consequences become visible.
The Sprint begins with the decision the manufacturer is weighing right now: input costs compressing margin, a line underperforming, a product mix that doesn't explain the margin, or a group-level view that takes two weeks to build.
For four weeks, the analyst works the manufacturer's own data: connecting systems, building the metrics, running the decision against a real alternative.
At the end:
The same analyst carries forward. Nothing gets rebuilt. Nobody gets briefed twice.
A supplier renewal. A line that underperforms. A product mix that doesn't explain the margin. A group view that takes two weeks to build. Pick one. An analyst reviews it and comes back with how Predien would approach it and what the Sprint would cover.
