Packaged platforms cover the common eighty percent of a factory well. The remaining twenty is where your competitive difference usually lives — the scheduling logic nobody else has, the customer portal your key account is asking for, the model that predicts your specific failure mode. That's what we build.
Build when the process is genuinely differentiating, when no product covers it without heavy compromise, when integration into an existing estate is the harder problem, or when licence economics at your scale make ownership cheaper. Buy when the need is standard and well served. Most plants end up with a hybrid: a configured platform for common functions plus bespoke software for the parts that are specific to them. OrbitX delivers both and has no commercial reason to steer you toward either.
Predictive work needs history, labels and reliable capture. Where those don't exist yet we say so and sequence the instrumentation first, rather than selling a model that will produce confident nonsense.
A narrow first release in production beats a comprehensive one in development. We ship something people use within weeks, then extend against real feedback.
Documentation, tests, readable architecture and a stack your team can hire for. You should be able to take the codebase to another firm without archaeology — that's a deliberate constraint, not an accident.
Every interface is defined and documented so systems can be replaced independently later. The shortcut version is faster this quarter and expensive for the next five years.
Your operational data stays in your environment, in open formats, with export you control. No hostage-taking through proprietary storage.
Software built around a process that no product covers properly.
Screens designed for gloved hands, poor lighting and a shift running behind.
Getting the logic out of the spreadsheet and out of one person's head.
One reconciled operational record underneath everything else.
Numbers people actually act on, at the level they act at.
Models built where the data genuinely supports them, and not where it doesn't.
Extending the operating record beyond your four walls.
For manufacturers whose product itself is becoming connected.
Taking over software that was built badly or abandoned.
| Model | Scope | Typical duration |
|---|---|---|
| Build vs. Buy Assessment | Independent analysis of whether to build, buy, extend or wait — with costs modelled across five years. | 1–2 weeks |
| Discovery & Prototype | Process discovery, solution design and a working prototype to validate the approach before committing to a build. | 3–5 weeks |
| Build Programme | Full design, build, integration and deployment, delivered in phased releases. | 3–9 months |
| Data Platform Programme | Data architecture, pipelines, quality monitoring and reporting layer. | 2–6 months |
| Modernisation Engagement | Assessment and incremental replacement of a legacy or abandoned system. | Variable |
The standard functions, delivered on a fitted platform or built.
Explore →The data foundation any model or platform depends on.
Explore →Independent build-versus-buy analysis before you commit.
Explore →A fixed-scope engagement. We walk your floor, map where data breaks down, and hand you a costed roadmap — whether or not you build any of it with us.