Paperless Factory & Real-Time Shop Floor Visibility

This success story shows how ThickDot helps manufacturing & distribution brands by improving operations and user experience with faster processing.

Case Details

Clients: Manufacturing & Distribution

Tags: Enterprise Web Application

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Winnipeg, Manitoba, R2M 3H1

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The Problem

Our manufacturing client’s production floor operated like most traditional manufacturing facilities: paperwork orders pinned to clipboards, progress tracked on whiteboards, and production status buried in someone’s head until end of shift data entry. Planners made critical scheduling decisions based on outdated information, sometimes 4-8 hours behind reality. Jobs ran late. Customer commitments slipped.

This engagement started with five very real pains:

Work orders printed, distributed, and manually updated throughout the day

No way to know real-time job status without walking the floor

Data delays meant planners reacted to problems hours after they occurred

Whiteboard tracking created information silos between shifts

On-time production hovered around 75%, not competitive, not sustainable

This wasn’t an ERP problem. The ERP worked fine as a system of record. The problem was the gap between ERP and how humans actually execute production.

Why Standard Solutions Don’t Work Here

Most companies face two bad options: accept the inefficiency or rip out the ERP for something modern. Both paths fail.

Paper persists because ERP screens are complex. Training operators to navigate multistep ERP workflows kills productivity. So teams default to printouts and manual processes, defeating the purpose of having software at all.

We chose a third path: build operator-friendly applications on top of the ERP, not instead of it.

The Solution: Digital Execution Layer

We built tablet-based applications designed for shop floor reality: large buttons, minimal clicks, and workflows that match how operators actually think and work.

What We Digitized

Work order access and real-time status updates

Scrap reporting with reason codes

Quality issues flagged instantly

Shift communication and handoffs

Production reporting synchronized automatically

The ERP remained the single source of truth. Our apps simply made interaction fast, intuitive, and real-time. Every action on a tablet wrote directly back to the ERP with full traceability.

Technology Approach

Custom web applications optimized for touch screens and factory environments

API integration with existing ERP for bidirectional data sync

Role-based permissions ensuring operators see only relevant information

Operators didn’t need ERP training. They needed tools that respected their expertise and removed friction.

The Measurable Impact

98% on-time production. Up from ~75%. That jump represents millions in retained revenue and customer relationships saved.

Zero paper workflows. The entire shop floor runs digitally. No more lost work orders, illegible handwriting, or data entry backlogs.

Real-time visibility replaced whiteboards. Planners and supervisors see live dashboards showing exactly where every job stands, which machines are running, and where bottlenecks form, before they fall into late deliveries.

Better decisions, faster. When you can see problems as they happen, you fix them in minutes instead of hours. Planners adjust schedules based on actual conditions, not yesterday's data.