What If Your Factory Could Think?

By James Hall, CEO of Therion

Last month, I had the privilege of speaking at the EMCON manufacturing conference about what it really means to build a “factory that thinks.” The talk sparked some great conversations throughout the day, and I’ve summarised the key ideas here for those who couldn’t be there. If any of it strikes a chord, feel free to reach out at james@therion.co

There’s never been more data in UK manufacturing and yet, productivity still lags behind.

If you're struggling to answer questions like:

• Why are we falling behind?

• Where are we leaking margin?

• What should we prioritise today?

…then the problem probably isn’t a lack of systems or data, it’s more likely to be a lack of usable insight.

And that’s a far bigger problem.

The Productivity Gap That No One Sees Coming

Research from iBASEt and the Manufacturing Technology Centre uncovered what many in the sector already feel:

• 94% of UK manufacturers believe productivity is being held back by a lack of digital investment

• 73% say legacy systems are limiting performance (more than those who blame Brexit)

• Over half have lost sales due to these limitations

• And 93% fear manufacturers like theirs won’t survive the next decade without meaningful change

But the problem is that most of those manufacturers have already invested. They’ve already paid for ERP licences, connected their machines, and built dashboards. Which all means they have a lot of data.

So why isn’t it working?

Because:

• the systems are Systems of Record not Systems of Insight,

• dashboards don’t think and

• data alone doesn’t provide any clarity.

Decisions Made Too Late

Here’s what this typically looks like in an organisation.

The order book is full and everyone’s busy, which means operations are running flat out trying to keep up with customer demand, internal targets, and supplier disruption.

Every team is focusing on what they need to do, which likely means they are all pulling in different directions. This also means that the levers for dealing with the pressure feel increasingly blunt:

• Increasing overtime

• More Subcontracting

• Splitting batches

• Rushing jobs out the door on dedicated transport

But without real-time commercial insight, you don’t know the impact of making those decisions; at best, they are just educated guesses.

The other issue is that the impact of those decisions is only known weeks later, when the accounts land. Only then do you discover the heroics didn’t deliver profit and, in some cases, they created losses.

That’s the pattern we see too often in UK manufacturing. Not one-off crises, but a drip feed of missed margins, rework, and opportunity cost.

It’s not due to a lack of effort but a lack of visibility when it’s needed most.

It’s Not Your Systems

One thing is clear: this isn’t about system failure.

Manufacturers have made huge investments in technology. Many have implemented ERP systems at significant financial and cultural cost with some projects running into into seven figures and still failing to deliver clarity.

I started my career in ERP consulting in the late 90s and I’ve seen the issues and impact first-hand. It’s very rarely about the software itself and more about what happens after the system goes live.

The systems will be working and in the case of ERP’s doing what they do well as Systems of Record. You will likely have the dashboards working but your team is still chasing down numbers at the end of the day, still reacting to problems with outdated summaries and therefore still running crisis meetings based on stale data.

So, the systems are there but they don’t talk to each other, or when they do, they don’t talk to you in a useful way. This means the insight, the part that’s supposed to unlock value, never appears.

Data-Rich. Insight-Poor.

Even when the systems are technically doing their job, things still break. Jobs that should’ve been profitable weren’t or delays that should have been flagged weren’t.

This means that the trust in the data starts to erode, then teams revert to workarounds and whiteboards, and Excel creeps back in, or worse, gut feel.

This doesn’t happen because people want to undermine the systems but because they can’t rely on what they’re seeing.

The result is a factory that’s rich in data… but poor in confidence.

And without confidence, nothing moves at speed.

From Hindsight to Foresight

Every manufacturer we work with is trying to move along the same data maturity curve:

• Hindsight: stitching together what happened, but when it’s too late to act

• Real-Time: seeing what's happening, but still being reactive

• Foresight: predicting what matters, and acting early

Many organisations seem to be stuck in the middle and trapped between what just happened, and what’s already too late to fix.

How Therion Helps Factories Think

Through digital and sector-specific consultancy and our software products, Therion builds solutions that support human decisions in real time – not just focusing on capturing data but making it usable.

To bring this to life, imagine at the start of a shift and you ask the question: “What do I need to know today?”. And the system replies:

• “These two jobs are trending behind”

• “This operator is over scheduled.”

• “This supplier missed a delivery.”

This means you are no longer having to look at dashboards, attend meetings, or speak to people to find the data you need which means there is no delays to your ability to make decisions.

Real Results: Dyer Engineering

Lets take a look at what happened at Dyer Engineering.

A few years ago, when they started their transformation, they certainly weren’t short on data. They also had an ERP, numerous dashboards, and of course, spreadsheets. The issue was that trust in the data was missing, and decisions were always made just a little too late.

So, they started by focusing on unlocking the value already inside their systems. There wasn’t a need for a new ERP, just smarter use of what was already there.

The result was a shift from reactive firefighting to confident decision-making ultimately moving the business from a £1.5M loss to over £2M profit.

The Real Transformation

Getting more out of the technology and data you have is just one part of the equation. More importantly, it enables a shift in how your people's time, attention, and talent are spent. When your systems push the right information to the right people, in time to act, your team can focus on the actions that actually move the needle for the business.

Your teams stop spending time reporting, reconciling, and chasing numbers and start solving problems, leading teams, and delivering value.

James Hall

CEO, Therion

At Therion, we help manufacturers turn data into foresight, building factories that think.