Discrete shops live on shared stations — ERP can't see the queue.
One CNC down, six orders slip differently. RippleFlo simulates your real routings, alternates, and queue effects — so you know who gets hit before the customer calls.
Schedules operations. Hides queue effects.
ERP assumes machines are available when the schedule says so. It doesn't model that CNC1 downtime hits Lot 2/6 with 4 hours of slip while Lot 3/6 takes an alternate route and only slips 40 minutes.
- One delay treated as equal across all orders
- Cannot model alternate machines and bypass routes
- Queue buildup invisible until the floor reports it
- What-if scenarios require changing the live schedule
Simulates the job shop.
Orders flow through CNC, QC, drilling, grinding, and pack — with per-commitment slip attribution and alternate-route resilience built in.
- Per-order slip measured against its own promise date
- Alternate machine routing when primary is unavailable
- Chaos mode: inject breakdowns and measure order impact
- Actuals → calibration → auto replan closed loop
Discrete manufacturing — ERP vs RippleFlo
| Dimension | ERP / MES | RippleFlo |
|---|---|---|
| Order promise | Average lead time | DES feasibility per order |
| Shared CNC | Assumes available | Queue & contention modeled |
| Alternate routes | Manual override | Simulated qualified alternates |
| Downtime impact | Equal offset for all | Per-order slip attribution |
| Late discovery | Customer calls | Amber/red alerts days earlier |
| Chaos testing | Real floor experiment | Inject in software first |
| Audit trail | Schedule history sparse | Simulation archive + replay |
| What-if cost | Change live schedule | Re-run model — zero risk |
Watch orders ripple through the job shop.
CNC1 queues. Grinding backs up. Three lots, three different slip stories — visible before publish.
How RippleFlo solves what ERP cannot in discrete manufacturing.
Job shops need per-order ripple tracing — not average lead times.
Per-order slip attribution
Lot 2/6 slips 4 hours; Lot 3/6 slips 40 minutes — same downtime, different paths.
Alternate machine routing
DES finds the next available qualified CNC when primary is down.
Chaos mode stress tests
Inject CNC1 downtime and measure which orders go late — in software.
Bottleneck exposure
Utilisation and queue depth per station reveal the real constraint.
Actuals → replan loop
Shop-floor timings recalibrate the model and trigger auto-replan.
Pre-commit blast preview
See who gets hit before you publish the schedule.
CNC1 down 600 minutes. Six lots. Six different stories.
Naive schedulers say later equals worse. RippleFlo measures slip per order against its own plan — so downstream alternates absorb shock for some lots but not others.
- Per-commitment slip with attribution (% CNC1 vs downstream queue)
- Stage-to-stage trace: if CNC1 slips, when does Final QC move?
- Pre-commit blast preview before publishing