Operations and production

Specialist agents · 27

• Demand planninganalysis

  Estimates short and mid-term operational demand with uncertainty ranges from orders, work order history and seasonality, and flags when the forecast diverges from the production plan.

• Capacity planninganalysis

  Compares planned workload with available machine, line and staff capacity, and identifies capacity shortfalls or surpluses by period and resource.

• Work sequencingproposal

  Proposes work order sequencing and priority based on due dates, capacity constraints, materials and margins, drafting the order changes for the work order system and MES.

• Shift coordinationproposal

  Prepares shift and operating staff coverage based on planned load, absences, skills and labor rules, and proposes schedule adjustments that people must authorize.

• Order controlproposal

  Monitors work order status, detects delays, blockages and stalled orders, and proposes unblocking steps or reassignments with the probable cause.

• Material consumptionproposal

  Tracks actual material consumption against order standards, flags variances, scrap and shortages, and proposes reservation or consumption adjustments in the ERP.

• Productivity analysisanalysis

  Analyzes productivity by line, workstation and product to locate bottlenecks, stoppages and performance losses, and explains their causes using MES and sensor data.

• Incident managementproposal

  Handles operational incidents: prepares immediate containment measures, assigns follow-up and documents resolution, drawing on sensor alerts, orders and procedures.

• Operating costanalysis

  Links operational activity to its cost, calculates operating cost per unit and explains variances from standard across labor, materials, energy and downtime.

• Process improvementproposal

  Proposes concrete process and operating parameter changes based on recurring root causes, and afterwards verifies whether the change delivered the expected improvement.

• S&OP and master schedulingproposal

  Reconciles forecast demand, available capacity and materials into a master production plan and runs the MRP net requirements calculation. Proposes order and date adjustments when the plan is not feasible.

• Workforce skills and trainingproposal

  Maintains the operator skills matrix, detects skill and certification gaps by station or shift and plans the required training. Proposes training plans and cross-coverage for critical stations.

• Shop-floor inventory and kanbanproposal

  Controls work-in-progress stock, internal reorder points and shop-floor kanban systems to prevent stoppages from material shortages and WIP excess. Proposes adjustments to cards, lot sizes and internal reorder points.

• Plant analytics (MES/IoT) and OEEanalysis

  Mines MES and IoT sensor data to compute OEE (availability, performance, quality), classify losses and maintain a near real-time operations dashboard. Flags machines and shifts with deviations and data gaps.

• Preventive and predictive maintenanceproposal

  Plans preventive maintenance, analyzes breakdowns using MTBF and MTTR and anticipates failures with sensor data (vibration, temperature, current). Proposes maintenance work orders and frequency changes without disrupting the production plan.

• In-process qualityproposal

  Defines in-process control plans and inspections, applies statistical process control (SPC, Cp/Cpk) and verifies compliance with ISO 9001, GMP, HACCP or FDA as applicable. Proposes changes to control points and sampling frequencies.

• Root cause analysisanalysis

  Applies 5 Whys, Ishikawa and 8D to recurring operational incidents to identify root causes. Verifies corrective action effectiveness with data and reopens cases that recur.

• Standard costing and cost breakdownsanalysis

  Builds costed bills of materials and standard unit costs and analyzes price, efficiency and volume variances against actuals. Quantifies the economic impact of changes to materials, routings or yields.

• Methods engineering and layoutproposal

  Measures cycle times and defines standard work, balances lines and stations and proposes more efficient plant layouts. Detects bottlenecks and unnecessary movement and proposes routing and time-standard changes.

• Occupational health and safetyanalysis

  Assesses workstation risks, manages compliance with Spanish PRL or US OSHA requirements and investigates accidents and incidents. Flags overdue inspections, trainings and reviews.

• Energy and operational environmentproposal

  Monitors energy consumption, waste and emissions of operations against targets and environmental regulation. Proposes savings measures and adjustments to meter and sensor readings.

• Contract manufacturing managementproposal

  Selects, coordinates and audits subcontractors and contract manufacturers on lead time, quality and cost. Compares outsourced and in-house production and proposes order reallocations and contract reviews.

• Industrialization and scale-upproposal

  Takes new products from prototype to series production through design for manufacturing (DFM), pilots and volume ramps. Verifies routings, tooling and acceptance criteria before releasing each volume step.

• Equipment investment and make-or-buyanalysis

  Evaluates buying, leasing or outsourcing equipment using ROI, payback and total cost, and incorporates incentives such as industrial grants or tax deductions (Section 179). Drafts the investment case for human decision.

• Service operations and SLAsproposal

  Plans and dispatches service or field jobs by skills, location and priority and tracks SLA compliance and response times. Proposes reassignments and alerts when breaches are forecast.

• SOPs and operational automationproposal

  Documents operating procedures and playbooks and detects repetitive tasks that can be automated with ERP, no-code workflows or RPA. Proposes automations and procedure updates with estimated time savings.

• Operational risk and continuityanalysis

  Identifies single points of failure across equipment, suppliers, people and systems and prepares continuity plans for breakdowns, supply disruptions or crises. Ranks risks by likelihood and impact and checks that plans have been tested.