— Industries · Manufacturing and distribution
Manufacturing data integration from plant floor to boardroom.
ERP, MES, quality, maintenance and supply chain data usually answer different questions with different numbers. Our manufacturing data integration work lands them in one governed lakehouse, orchestrated and reconciled, so operations leaders see one version of throughput, cost and quality, and security teams can see who touched what.
30+ years inside IBM · EY · J&J · McKesson
Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt
AIMContext from $3,500
60-Day Ship Guarantee
— The pattern · Where it breaks
Every system has a number. None of them agree.
ERP, MES and spreadsheets.
Production, quality and inventory figures come from different systems with different keys, and the reconciliation happens in someone’s workbook.
Symptom: the plant and finance report different yields.
Supply chain blind spots.
Supplier, logistics and demand data arrive in formats nobody integrated, so a disruption is visible in hindsight rather than in time.
Symptom: expediting as a standing process.
Security and contract rules.
Defense and regulated supply chains carry security obligations, and the evidence sits across IT and plant systems nobody logs together.
Symptom: a customer security questionnaire that takes weeks.
— The work · What we build
What manufacturing data integration looks like on the lakehouse.
ERP and MES ingestion
SAP, NetSuite and plant systems landed in bronze with lineage intact, using managed connectors where they exist and custom ingestion where they do not.
Conformed layers
One set of keys for parts, plants, suppliers and customers in silver, and gold views finance and operations both accept.
Orchestration
Scheduled pipelines with retries and alerts, so a failed load is found by an owner rather than by a report reader.
Quality as data
Defects, holds and yields measured across the flow, the way a Master Black Belt would measure a production line.
Access and logging
Group-based access, audit logs and retention designed in, so security evidence for customers and contracts comes from records.
Operational analytics
Gold views and metric views for throughput, cost and on-time delivery that Power BI and Genie read directly.
— The approach · Reconcile first
Two systems that agree beat ten that are connected.
We do not start by connecting everything. We land two sources end to end, for example ERP and MES, and reconcile them against the numbers finance already trusts. Only when two agree in gold do we build the rest.
That is how integration earns trust on a plant floor, where a wrong number costs real material.
— The method · AIM-IT
Five phases. Every build, every time.
Assess, Innovate, Model, Implement, Track. Each phase ends with something you can inspect and sign off, not a slide.
01 · ASSESS
Assess
Source and flow map
Every system, hand-off and spreadsheet in the flow from order to delivery.
02 · INNOVATE
Innovate
Key and layer design
Shared keys for parts, plants and suppliers, and the layers they live in.
03 · MODEL
Model
Two sources reconciled
Two systems landed and reconciled against trusted figures.
04 · IMPLEMENT
Implement
Build out
Remaining sources and views built in your workspace with your engineers.
05 · TRACK
Track
Control plan
Freshness, quality and cost measured on a schedule, each with an owner.
— The deliverable · What you get
Manufacturing data integration with a fixed scope.
AIMContext
Governed operations data foundation, fixed scope.
Most engagements start with AIMContext, the fixed-scope build of a governed foundation:
- Priority sources landed in a governed bronze, silver and gold lakehouse.
- Orchestrated pipelines with retries, alerts and owners.
- Quality measured as data across the flow.
- Access, audit logs and retention designed in.
- Your team able to run it.
$3,500+
14 days
5 phases
60 days
60-Day
Ship Guarantee
On every Sprint engagement: if we do not deliver the agreed working artifact in 60 days, you do not pay the final invoice. That is what AIM-IT is for.
— The discipline · Lean Six Sigma
A lakehouse is a production line for data.
Bronze is receiving, silver is inspection, gold is finished goods. We apply the same discipline manufacturers already use on the floor: measure defects at each stage, find the cause, and put a named owner on the control.
It is the pairing that makes integration hold: Databricks for the platform, Lean Six Sigma for the process.
— Related reading · From the blog
Go deeper on manufacturing data.
SAP
The routes for SAP data.
ERP
NetSuite into governed layers.
Silos
Why silos make every deadline harder.
Quality
Quality as a measured process.
Orchestration
Keeping pipelines on schedule and owned.
Logs
Retention rules side by side.
— Straight answers · FAQ
Questions we get asked first.
Are you a Databricks partner or certified?
No, and we will not imply otherwise. Certification is in preparation, and we are not in the Databricks partner programme. What we bring is thirty years of delivering the enterprise systems this data comes out of, inside IBM, Ernst & Young, Johnson & Johnson and McKesson, plus Lean Six Sigma at Master Black Belt level. Ask us for the work, not the badge.
Can you bring SAP and plant data together?
Yes. SAP data has a documented path into Databricks, and plant systems usually arrive through files, historians or APIs. We scope each source against what it actually exposes before promising dates.
We supply the defense industry. Can you help with security evidence?
We build the data side: inventory, access controls, audit logs and retention. Formal assessments are done by qualified assessors, and we do not claim to certify anything.
Do we need to replace our ERP or MES?
No. The lakehouse sits alongside them and integrates their data. Replacing core systems is a separate decision we will not push.
What does it cost?
AIMContext starts at $3,500 for a fixed-scope governed foundation, with a typical first build in 14 days. Larger programmes are quoted after scoping, and every engagement carries the 60-Day Ship Guarantee.
Start with two systems that should agree.
One call, your systems on the table, and a straight read on what an integrated, governed lakehouse would take for your plants.