From the signed order to the part in stock
By Nicolas Lemielle, Director of DigiWall ·
Making to measure means accepting that no part looks like the one before. Different dimensions, different finishes, different machines. The difficulty is not producing: it is knowing, at any given moment, where each part stands and who has it.
The production file as a starting point
Every made-to-measure order gives a production file, which becomes the reference document: the customer, the maker, the production site, a commercial lead and a technical lead, an expected production end date.
Each line of the file is a production order, with its dimensions, its quantity to produce, its quantity already produced, its planned date and its priority. So you see at once what is left to do on a job, line by line, without adding up in your head.
Who does what, on which machine
It is the level below that changes daily life in the workshop. Each line breaks down into steps — cutting, finishing, quality control — and each step carries its status, the operator in charge of it and the machine concerned.
So a workshop manager no longer hunts for who has the part. He opens the file and reads that cutting is done, that finishing is under way on the polisher, and that quality control has not started. A salesperson called by a customer can answer without crossing the workshop.
One job, one view
Above production, the customer file gathers everything to do with the same job or the same site: quotations and orders, purchases, production runs, deliveries, invoices. Several files can coexist for the same customer, which matches the reality of firms running several sites in parallel for the same client.
The point is to stop reconstructing a job by cross-checking lists. You open the file, you see overall progress and you reach each document in one click. Worth noting: the information belonging to the file stays descriptive — changing a linked order does not change it, and the reverse holds too. The file organises, it does not recalculate on your behalf.
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