Overview
Manufacturing performance is won in the gaps between systems. The ERP, MES, QMS, and maintenance tools show the official record, but the real decisions happen in email threads, shared docs, and ad-hoc coordination.
Centi rebuilds the end-to-end process from both structured events and unstructured communication so you can see where time, money, and quality are leaking, and automate the moments that keep lines moving.
Where Value Gets Stuck
- Maintenance approvals, parts coordination, and vendor handoffs are often split across inboxes and work orders.
- Nonconformance investigations and rework loops lack clear causal context, so the same issues repeat.
- Expedites and schedule changes live outside the ERP, making it hard to see why production plans drift.
Use Cases
Unplanned downtime triage and escalation
Outage response depends on fast decisions across maintenance, engineering, and procurement. When approvals and context live in email, recovery slows down and the cost of downtime climbs.
ABB reports typical unplanned downtime costs close to $125,000 per hour and that many industrial businesses experience outages monthly.[1]
How Centi helps
- Trace the full approval chain for repair work, parts sourcing, and vendor dispatch across email and work orders.
- Surface repeat bottlenecks and route approvals automatically with guardrails and decision traces.
Outcome
- Faster outage resolution with fewer stalled approvals.
- Clear accountability for maintenance decisions across teams.
Scrap and rework loop elimination
Quality deviations often trigger long, fragmented investigations. Without a complete record of who decided what and why, rework loops stay hidden.
APQC benchmarking shows median scrap and rework costs at 5.0% of COGS across companies.[2]
How Centi helps
- Link nonconformance records to the surrounding communication context to identify why defects recur.
- Automate corrective action routing and close-the-loop documentation.
Outcome
- Shorter containment cycles and fewer repeat deviations.
- Higher confidence in root-cause ownership.
Supplier shortage and expedite visibility
Supplier delays are usually managed across calls, email, and spreadsheets, leaving the system of record incomplete and making downstream impact hard to assess.
Gartner finds that up to 80% of real, on-the-ground supply chain activity is not reflected in current digital decision models.[3]
How Centi helps
- Fuse supplier emails, change notices, and logistics updates with ERP transactions to build a true flow of material commitments.
- Trigger alerts and recommended actions when deviations appear.
Outcome
- Earlier detection of shortage risk and fewer last-minute expedites.
- A shared, auditable view of why schedules moved.
How Centi Helps
Capture the real process
Ingest ERP/MES records, maintenance work orders, quality data, and the surrounding communication trail from email, Slack, or Teams.
Explain the bottlenecks
Centi rebuilds the process graph and attaches the communication context so you can see where and why delays happen.
Automate the fix
Deploy guarded agents to route approvals, draft responses, and push the process forward with full traceability.
What You Get
- Process maps with bottleneck and rework hotspots tied to evidence.
- Root-cause narratives that identify why delays repeat.
- Automation-ready playbooks for high-friction steps.
Ready to see it in your operation?
We run a focused pilot on the workflows that matter most. You get an evidence‑backed process review and a prioritized automation plan.
Book a walkthrough