Complete Inventory Tracking

The brief

Micropolis builds machines. The parts that go into them were real, and they were not in one place. Stock lived in the shop. Weight lived on a scale, or nowhere. Price lived in a material order. Time lived with the person standing at the machine.

We went there. The job was to put that inventory under control: every part, with what is on hand, what it weighs, what the material costs, and how long it takes to make.

The challenge

A shop can have the part in its hands and still not know what that part costs, or how long it will occupy the process that makes the next one.

• Stock that was physically there, and uncounted
• Weight missing from the record, so the material price had nothing to sit on
• Four ways to make a part - print, CNC, lathe, laser - and four different clocks
• PLA, aluminium, iron, and sheet metal, none of them the same price

How we approached it

We worked the stock on site. Each part became a line: quantity on hand, weight, the route that makes it, the material, and the price of that material.

Then the time. Not a rate from a catalogue. The hours the people who run print, CNC, lathe, and laser said that part takes.

What we built

An inventory the shop can run. Open a part and the line is complete: stock, weight, route, material price, make-time. Before a machine starts, someone can see what the piece costs and how long it will sit on that process.

The prices are the material prices. The hours are the hours the makers gave. Nothing on the record was guessed from the outside.

Results

The stock Micropolis holds and makes now has a weight, a price, and a time on it. We do not publish their shop rates, volumes, or a saving.

In use

A new part enters the same inventory. Counted, weighed, priced, timed. The record stays in the shop, with the people who make the machine.