What manufacturing technology work involves
Manufacturing software connects plant systems to the decisions made around them: production visibility, quality records, maintenance planning, traceability and the reporting that leadership uses to act. Neovantra works at the boundary between operational technology and business systems — careful territory, because plant equipment cannot be paused for a deployment window.
Programmes usually begin with a visibility gap: leaders learning about a line stoppage from a daily report rather than the floor.
Problems we are usually asked to solve
Production and quality data trapped in PLCs, standalone systems and paper travellers; downtime recorded without cause codes so improvement has no target; maintenance performed on a calendar rather than equipment condition; traceability recall drills that take days because records live in separate sites; and OEE figures assembled manually each shift.
Data collection from the floor upward
We read from PLCs, SCADA and historians through gateways that buffer locally, so network interruptions never lose production records. Edge processing aggregates at the line before transmission, keeping volume and cost bounded. Each event carries context — line, shift, work order, operator role where appropriate — so analysis can separate causes instead of reporting a single blended number.
MES, ERP and quality integration
Integration is sequenced around the systems of record: ERP for orders and inventory, MES or its equivalent for execution, quality systems for non-conformance. Interfaces are versioned and monitored with ownership, work orders move through explicit states with operator confirmation, and non-conformance records capture disposition and corrective action rather than a free-text note nobody can aggregate later.
Reliability, safety and deployment realities
Plant-facing applications are designed for availability on constrained networks: local caching, tolerant sync, and interfaces usable with gloved hands on industrial terminals. Changes are staged away from production schedules, with instant rollback and no dependency on immediate cloud connectivity. Role separation keeps operators, line supervisors and engineers inside the views and actions appropriate to them.
Compliance and traceability
For food, pharma and regulated components we build lot and serial traceability with retention aligned to the applicable regime — including FDA 21 CFR Part 11 expectations for electronic records and signatures in US pharma contexts, ISO 9001 evidence needs, and personal-data rules such as GDPR for workforce data. Documented records, revision history and access control are designed in rather than reconstructed for audit.
Engagement patterns and measures
A single-line pilot proving collection, visibility and a working intervention typically takes eight to twelve weeks and suits fixed price. Site rollouts beyond that run as a dedicated team with a repeatable deployment playbook. Measures agreed in advance typically cover downtime captured with cause codes, OEE calculation time, traceability drill duration and manual reporting hours removed.
Sample solutions
- Predictive maintenance and machine monitoring
- MES, ERP, and supply chain systems integration
- Factory analytics and digital operations dashboards
Compliance we build towards
We engineer controls for the regimes below and prepare evidence for your auditors. We do not claim certification ourselves — attestations come from accredited bodies engaged by you.
- ISO 9001 evidence and record control
- 21 CFR Part 11 aligned records where applicable
- GDPR handling for workforce data
- Lot and serial traceability retention
Frequently asked questions
Do you work directly with PLCs and SCADA?
Yes, through standard industrial protocols and gateways with buffering at the edge. Work that requires physical safety certification or equipment modification is coordinated with your controls engineering partner rather than undertaken remotely.
Will this interrupt production?
Collection is passive by default, integrations read without touching control logic, and application changes stage outside production schedules with rollback available. Anything requiring a line stoppage is scheduled and signed off in advance.
We have multiple plants — can it standardise?
We build a canonical data model with per-site mapping, so plants keep their equipment and terminology while leadership gets comparable figures. Rollout uses a playbook proven at the pilot site.