C01 — Operations & Transformation Consulting

Diagnose the operation before anyone writes a line of code.

Most transformation budgets are spent solving the wrong problem precisely. We start on your floor — understanding how work actually happens, where performance leaks, and where data stops moving — then hand you a sequenced roadmap with the numbers attached.

Book a Connected Floor Audit→ All capabilities

The straight answer

What does OrbitX's operations and transformation consulting cover?

It covers the diagnostic half of a transformation: an on-floor operations and process audit, OEE and loss analysis, a data-flow and system landscape map, a digital maturity assessment, and a sequenced transformation roadmap with a costed business case. It also covers independent technology selection — build-versus-buy analysis and vendor evaluation — plus the organisational and operating-model work around the technology decision. Because we do not own a software product, our recommendation is not constrained by a licence we need to sell.

When this is relevant

You probably need this if…

Your reports arrive a day late and nobody fully trusts the numbers in them.
You know you need to modernise but can't sequence it — every vendor says start with their thing.
A previous digitisation attempt stalled and you're not sure whether to restart it or scrap it.
You're being asked for a business case and don't have defensible numbers to build one from.
You're evaluating platforms and want an assessment that isn't written by someone selling one.
You're adding a line, a shift or a plant and want to get the operating model right before you scale the problems.

What we fix

Problems we address

Improvement projects chosen by who shouted loudest rather than by quantified impact.
Technology selected before the process problem underneath it was understood.
OEE reported as a single number that hides where the losses actually sit.
Roadmaps with no costing, no sequencing and no owner — so they never survive the first budget cycle.
Vendor evaluations run on feature checklists rather than on fit to how your plant actually operates.
Consultants who never left the meeting room and produced recommendations the floor quietly ignores.

Our approach

How we work through it.

Walk the floor first, read the documents second
We spend time on the line, across shifts, watching the work — because the SOP describes intent and the floor describes reality. The gap between the two is usually where the money is.
Quantify before recommending
Every gap we name gets a number attached in your units: hours of downtime, scrap value, overtime hours, reporting labour. If we can't quantify it, we say so rather than dressing it up.
Fix the process before automating it
Automating a broken workflow just makes it fail faster and at greater expense. Where a process needs simplifying first, that goes in the roadmap ahead of any software.
Stay independent on technology
We assess whether to configure a proven platform, build bespoke, extend what you already own, or do nothing yet. All four are real answers and we have given all four.
Sequence by payback, not by ambition
The roadmap is ordered so the first phase funds the argument for the second. Programmes that show a number moving in ninety days survive budget reviews; programmes that promise value in year two rarely do.

Scope of work

What sits inside C01.

C01.01

Operations & Process Audit

A structured review of how your plant actually runs, across shifts and functions.

Line and process observation
Value stream and material flow mapping
Changeover and setup analysis
Bottleneck and constraint identification
Standard work and SOP review

C01.02

OEE & Loss Analysis

Breaking the headline number into the losses you can actually act on.

Availability, performance and quality split
Downtime reason taxonomy
Micro-stop and speed-loss analysis
Scrap and rework costing
Benchmarking against sector norms

C01.03

Digital Maturity Assessment

Where you sit today across data, systems, process discipline and capability.

System landscape inventory
Data flow and breakpoint mapping
Process digitisation scorecard
Capability and skills assessment
Peer benchmark comparison

C01.04

Transformation Roadmap

A sequenced, costed plan with a defensible business case behind it.

Phase definition and sequencing
Cost and effort estimation
ROI model in your numbers
Risk and dependency mapping
Governance and ownership design

C01.05

Software Strategy & Selection

Independent advice before you commit budget to a licence or a build.

Build vs. buy vs. extend analysis
Platform and vendor evaluation
Technical due diligence
Architecture direction
Recovery assessment for stalled programmes

C01.06

Organisation & Growth Strategy

The structure and capability changes that make the technology work.

Operating model design
Role and accountability mapping
Capability and hiring plan
New plant / new line readiness
Board and investor reporting design

Deliverables

What you get

A current-state operations and data-flow map of your plant.
Quantified loss analysis showing where performance and money leak.
A digital maturity scorecard with peer benchmarks.
A phased transformation roadmap with costs, effort and sequencing.
An ROI model built in your numbers that you can defend internally.
A written build-versus-buy recommendation with the reasoning shown.
A risk register and governance model for the programme.

Outcomes

What changes

You know which three problems to fix first, and why.
You can defend the investment to a board with numbers rather than adjectives.
Technology decisions stop being driven by whoever presented most recently.
The process is simplified before it gets automated, so the automation actually helps.
You have a plan the floor recognises as describing their plant.
You retain the option to execute with us, with someone else, or in-house.

Engagement

How we partner on this.

Model	Scope	Typical duration
Connected Floor Audit	The standard entry engagement. On-site audit, gap quantification and a costed roadmap. Fixed fee, fixed scope, yours to keep.	2–4 weeks
Transformation Health Check	Diagnostic on a stalled or underperforming programme — why it stalled, what is salvageable, what finishing it takes.	1–2 weeks
Technology Selection Review	Independent evaluation of platforms or vendors under consideration, scored against your operating reality.	2–3 weeks
Advisory Retainer	Ongoing access for leadership through a transformation programme — including one we aren't delivering.	Monthly

Questions

Frequently asked

We don't have any software to recommend. OrbitX is platform-independent: where a proven manufacturing platform fits, we implement and configure it; where nothing fits, we build bespoke; and where the honest answer is that you should fix a process rather than buy anything, we say so. Roughly speaking, that last answer comes up more often than people expect.

Two ways. First, the people who do the audit are the people who would build the fix, so we can't recommend something we don't know how to deliver — a discipline that quietly removes a lot of wishful thinking. Second, we're a smaller team, which means the person on your floor is senior rather than an analyst two years out of university.

No. ERP tells you what was planned and what was transacted. The gap is what actually happened on the floor between those two points — which machine stopped, why, for how long, who fixed it, what it cost. That layer is what we audit, and it's the layer most manufacturers have no reliable data on.

You keep it. The audit is a fixed-fee, standalone engagement and the deliverable is yours to take to any vendor or implement in-house. We'd rather you make a good decision without us than a poor one with us.

Frequently. A meaningful share of audits conclude that the first phase should be process simplification, data discipline or basic measurement rather than a software deployment. Digitising an unstable process locks the instability in.