The Quiet Manufacturer
A 75-year-old family manufacturer increased operational efficiency by 34% while preserving the culture that made them successful.
Efficiency Increase
Employee Turnover
Weeks to ROI Positive
Downtime Reduction
The Challenge
Our client, a third-generation family manufacturer in the Midwest, had built a successful business on quality, relationships, and a deeply loyal workforce. But legacy systems and manual processes were creating bottlenecks that threatened their competitive position.
The leadership team knew they needed to modernize, but past technology investments had failed—expensive systems that sat unused because they didn't fit how the business actually worked. Employees were skeptical, and frankly, so were some executives.
The challenge wasn't just technical. It was cultural. How do you transform a 75-year-old organization without losing what makes it special?
Tags
Our Approach
We started with Discovery, spending three weeks embedded in operations across all three shifts. We talked to machine operators, quality inspectors, shipping clerks, and the C-suite. We mapped where institutional knowledge lived and how decisions actually got made.
What emerged was a clear picture: the organization didn't need radical disruption. It needed augmentation. AI could handle the tedious work that pulled people away from the craftsmanship they valued.
We designed a phased transformation focused on three areas: predictive maintenance to reduce unplanned downtime, intelligent scheduling to optimize production flow, and automated quality documentation to free up engineering time.
Crucially, we involved frontline workers in the design process. Their insights shaped how systems were built and deployed. The solutions worked because they were built by the people who would use them.
The Results
Operational Efficiency
34% improvement in overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) within 12 months
Culture Preservation
Zero team member departures during transformation; employee satisfaction scores increased
Knowledge Retention
Critical institutional knowledge captured and documented for the first time
Sustained Impact
Internal team trained to maintain and extend systems independently
"They didn't come in with a playbook. They came in with questions. That made all the difference. Our team still talks about how this felt like something we did together, not something done to us."
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