No new lines, no new headcount, no ERP customization. Zeak Manufacturing Operations joins schedule, material, machines, maintenance, people, training and quality into one schedule that knows what is actually possible, shows what a change will cost before you make it, and carries the decision through approval to measured value.
Read the brochure in two minutes; share the overview with Finance, Quality and IT.
The factory rarely loses money in one place. It loses it between plans, calendars and handoffs: a machine scheduled while it is down, an operator whose certificate lapsed, a batch that stops for one missing part.
of factory cost sits in support functions: the planning, maintenance, materials and quality work around production.
BCG, 2020of revenue lost to unplanned downtime, about $1.4T a year across the world’s 500 largest companies.
Siemens, True Cost of Downtime 2024with 1–2 hours per shift of manual assignment removed · McKinsey, 2021
Improvement ranges reported at leading plants · McKinsey, 2022
External research benchmarks, not Manufacturing Operations results or promised returns. Populations, methods and use cases differ.
Every proof comes from your own data, measured against a baseline your Finance team agrees. Not every production problem needs AI: most of the capacity is found with connected data, clear rules and a governed workflow.
Maintenance blocks the schedule, in the window that costs least.
With Zeak: Planned maintenance blocks the schedule, and the best window is found for both production and maintenance.
One governed board checks every move and shows the cost.
With Zeak: One governed scheduling board checks every move against every constraint and shows the cost before you commit.
Everything an order needs is checked before release.
With Zeak: Material, tools, qualified operators and quality release are checked before an order is released.
Sequences recommended on the constraint.
With Zeak: Sequences are recommended on the constraint, with changeover hours and contribution per constraint hour shown.
Certification checked at the point of assignment.
With Zeak: A certification check at the point of assignment, with a skills matrix and recertification time reserved.
ERP records orders. MES records execution. Maintenance, HR, training and quality each keep their own calendar. Manufacturing Operations brings them onto one board.
Drag a move. See the consequence first. Before anything is saved, the board checks the move against every constraint and shows what it costs. People decide; Zeak does the checking.
Schedule, material, maintenance, people, quality and cost each live in their own system today. Choose an area to see what the board checks, what you gain and where to start.
Drag an order, operation or maintenance window and see lateness, material, maintenance, labor and certification fit, changeover and overtime before you save.
Production decisions cross operations, planning, maintenance, materials, HR, quality, Finance and IT. Each role starts on the queue it owns, and everyone works from the same numbers.
Compare plants on attainment, capacity, labor coverage, shortages and value at risk, and see which interventions create verified value.
See in-flight operations, live order and batch progress and how a delay spreads, then compare recovery options with their time and cost.
Prioritize open orders by date and by material, machine and labor readiness, and see why a job cannot start before it reaches the floor.
Preventive, corrective, calibration and turnaround work sits on the production board, with the windows that lose the least production value and still meet the due date.
Shifts, skills, training and certifications from your HR and learning systems, used by the schedule at the moment of assignment.
Quality holds act as constraints, release readiness is visible per batch, and deviations and CAPAs link to the orders, resources and people involved.
Baselines agreed before the pilot, published formulas, three value states kept separate, overlap removed, and Finance validating realized value.
Read-only start, approvals, an audit trail and enforced qualification gates, in your cloud with full export.
Seventeen capabilities, one governed schedule. Open any capability to see its key features; the customer overview describes all 229, with what each changes on the floor and the measure to watch.
Each capability has more features in the customer overview. Availability by release is confirmed in your proposal and verified during the pilot.
Automation is a staircase you control, not a leap. Each capability moves up only when the criteria you set are met, and any stage can be stepped back without losing records. AI never publishes a schedule, qualifies a person or overrides a maintenance block.
Read-only and in parallel. Zeak builds the connected schedule and constraint picture and changes nothing.
In practiceYour plan runs exactly as today.Zeak flags conflicts and late orders and recommends sequences and recoveries, with evidence. People accept or reject.
In practiceWhere most plants find most of the value.Planners draft and publish in Zeak, with approval before anything reaches the floor or your systems.
In practiceThe re-keying disappears; the decision stays with your team.Automation for routine, well-proven cases only, such as re-sequencing within the firm window. Exceptions go to people.
In practiceOnly what you switch on. Many plants never need it.Wrap first, replace later, if ever.
Configured per plant, line, horizon and change type, without code.
Read-only first, through connectors and the integration layer. Dynamics 365 production, resources, calendars and asset management connect first; where a source is missing, Zeak runs that part standalone or shows the gap.
SAPMost real companies don’t fit one box. That’s normal: one core product, configured for how your plants run.
Campaigns, cleaning and release; certified operators on every step; allergen sequencing and holds—without bypassing Quality.
Campaigns and changeovers by family; reactor, tank and line availability; batch yield and cleanout.
Tool qualification, recipe compatibility, WIP flow and queue-time limits.
Long routings, certified skills, work-package readiness and serial trace.
Line-down protection, takt and line balance, component shortages and bottlenecks made visible.
Make-to-order capacity and promise dates the plant can keep.
Changeovers across shades, sizes and SKUs; seasonal peaks without overtime.
Compare plants across companies and ERPs on the same facts, and find capacity before capital spend.
Regulated workflows, including electronic records and signatures, require use-case-specific design and validation.
One line or plant, one decision owner, one baseline Finance agrees, run alongside your plan in your test environment. The most complex pilots take weeks; most take less. Stop at any step and keep everything you learned.
We are willing to co-invest in qualified pilots, so you see the value on your own data before a larger commitment.
Enhancements to Manufacturing Operations are delivered at time and materials, approved before work begins. A completely new solution can be time and materials, fixed cost, or a hybrid with outcome-based fees.
Pick one line, one plant, or one scheduling, maintenance or staffing decision. We’ll agree the baseline with your Finance team, measure the capacity on your own data, and prove the economics before you commit to more.
The questions plant, planning and Finance teams ask us, answered plainly, with the limitations stated up front.
See all Zeak FAQsNo. It connects the systems you have and improves the decisions that cross them. Your ERP, MES, maintenance, quality, HR and learning systems stay the systems of record, and production orders are still released where they are released today.
No. Zeak plans, checks, records and measures. It does not control equipment or replace your execution system; automation stays in your MES layer.
Yes to all. Dynamics 365 production, resources, calendars and asset management are the first connector. Other platforms connect through the integration layer, and the connections for your system, version and customizations are confirmed in discovery—starting read-only.
No. Start with ERP, maintenance and labor data and operator stop capture. OEE reads unavailable until machine signals are connected, rather than being estimated.
Not until write-back is enabled for that object and approved. Until then, the published schedule lives in Zeak.
Yes. A governed round trip lets them export, edit agreed fields and import through the same validation as the board.
Rules, predictions and recommendations can be wrong. That is why Zeak advises before it acts, shows its evidence, logs every accept and reject, and lets you step back a stage at any time.
Zeak reports hours released and FTE-equivalent capacity. What you do with that capacity is your decision; most plants redeploy it to improvement work and growth.
Finance agrees the baseline up front, actions are tracked, overlap is removed and Finance validates realized value. Estimated, implemented and validated value are kept apart.
It depends on the project. The most complex pilots take weeks; most take less. A live board and constraint view comes early in the pilot.