Function · Production
Schedules drift the moment they leave the spreadsheet. Here's what production teams deal with by business type, and the modules that keep plan and floor in step.
Production manager · Planner · Operations · Shift lead
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Contract manufacturers
You make products for other brands, against their briefs, and speed to first sample wins you the work.
Own-product manufacturers
You develop, make and sell your own portfolio, so R&D, production and commercial are the same P&L.
Ingredient providers
You sell ingredients with technical know-how attached: application formulations, samples, SDSs and documentation packs.
The detail
Planning, scheduling, batch execution and getting product made right first time.
You own the product, the launch date and the compliance outcome, usually across several contract manufacturers.
Very few brands manufacture in-house. If you do, the manufacturer view is the right one. What brands care about here is the stock-to-sales ratio.
You make products for other brands, against their briefs, and speed to first sample wins you the work.
What goes wrong today
Production planning lives on a spreadsheet or a whiteboard
Do we have the materials, where are they, is the machine free, do we have the people, and how does this fit with every other customer job? The schedule is in constant flux, and because it isn't optimised that's real money in idle labour and idle machinery.
Paper batch records slow release
They drag out GMP and customer audits as well as the release itself.
Changeovers cost more than anyone measures
Different bottle, cap, label and fill weight, plus a full clean if the previous product had allergens, strong fragrance or a pigment that carries over.
Goal: The right jobs on the right machines at the right times with the right number of people.
Modules that do the work
You develop, make and sell your own portfolio, so R&D, production and commercial are the same P&L.
What goes wrong today
Batch manufacturing carries batch-sized risk
If the customer wants 700kg and the smallest vessel is 1,000kg, you make 1,000kg. If something goes wrong at the end, you don't lose a unit, you lose the batch.
Yield reconciliation is rarely done well
You put in 1,000kg and got 963kg. Some is residue, evaporation and QC samples, some is a mis-weigh or a recording error, and it all feeds the real cost of the product.
Picking by lot and by expiry
Recording which lot went into which batch is a legal requirement and the foundation of recall, and FEFO picking is done on trust.
Goal: Make the volume, right first time, safely, at a cost per unit you can actually see.
Modules that do the work
You sell ingredients with technical know-how attached: application formulations, samples, SDSs and documentation packs.
What goes wrong today
Paper records across mixing and finishing
It's hard to prove which lot went into which batch when the evidence is on paper.
Batches held waiting on third-party results
Lab results are tracked outside the system, so nobody knows what's actually blocking release.
Scheduling is done poorly almost everywhere
Vessel and line capacity, machine sequencing to minimise cleaning, and consolidating customer orders into efficient batches.
Goal: Prove traceability instantly and stop losing days to release admin.
Modules that do the work
Where we stop
Willow finds answers, prepares work and routes decisions using the live operating record. Material actions remain governed by permissions, approvals and audit history.
Other functions
Research
If you're still building a shortlist, these break the market down side by side.
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