KEBUZZ
Software delivery for
manufacturing & operations
Roswell, Georgia
You find the problem.I build the missing software.
I build the software behind operational problems in manufacturing, either for the business directly or behind the consultant who found the problem.
Why this exists
Most of the problems you find have an obvious answer, and you can usually see it on the first walk through the plant.
Production and scrap get written on paper and keyed into a spreadsheet at the end of the shift. The ERP stopped matching the floor a while ago and everyone has quietly worked around it. One supervisor knows how a job really runs and nobody has written it down. Information that would answer the question exists somewhere, in a format nobody can get at.
You already know what would fix any of these, so you put it in the report and the client agrees with you. Then it sits there, because the next step was a development project and neither of you had anyone to do it. That is the part I do.
How it works
You bring me the problem
Describe it in general terms if you would rather. I do not need the client named to tell you whether it is worth pursuing.
We scope it together
Usually an hour on a call. You will hear what is feasible, what is not, and what I would rather not attempt, before we talk about money.
I build it
Built on your existing systems. There is no need to replace software that already works, so the new piece adds to it rather than displacing it, and you see it as it comes together rather than at the end.
The same work, two arrangements
You are a consultant
White-label. I build under your name or alongside you, whichever fits, and you decide what the client pays. I do not approach your clients directly, during the work or afterwards. That holds whether or not we ever work together again.
You are the manufacturer
Simpler, because there is nobody in between. You are the client, we scope it directly, and you deal with me rather than with an account manager. If you already have a consultant on the problem, bring them along and we work the first way instead.
What I build
Three examples
All of these get built on the systems the client already has, since replacing software that works is usually out of scope and out of budget.
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Shop-floor data capture
A job comes out of the system the plant already uses, the operator scans it on a phone or a barcode gun, records what was produced and what was scrapped, and the transaction goes back into the source system. A label prints and the monitor on the wall updates. Nothing gets re-keyed and nobody waits until the end of the shift. It runs on the phones and scanners that are already in the building.
FIG. 01The four steps of that loop - 1Job arrives from the existing system
- 2Operator scans it — phone or barcode
- 3Records production, scrap, completion
- 4Writes back, prints a label, updates the board
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Making sense of ERP and accounting data
Reconstructing what actually happened from the data a business already holds, reconciling it, and showing where it does not line up. This is useful before a sale, after an acquisition, or any time the books and the operation are telling different stories.
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Recovering information that is out of reach
Information that exists but cannot be used, because it is spread across systems, buried in documents, stuck in something legacy, or was never written down in the first place. I get it back, give it a structure, and turn it into something the business can work from.
Who I work with
Small businesses and consulting firms
Small manufacturers and distributors, and the consulting firms that work with them. Both tend to have the same problem, which is that the fix needs a developer and there is no sensible way to keep one on the payroll for the handful of times a year it would pay off.
If you are a consultant the arrangement is white-label, so you keep the client, you set the price, and I build underneath you. If you run the business yourself it is simpler, because you are the client and there is nobody in between.
Firms I work behind:
- Manufacturing consultants
- Lean & continuous improvement
- Operations consultants
- Fractional COOs
- ERP & process consultants
- Accounting & audit practices
- Manufacturing extension programs
On price. I price against what the problem is costing rather than the hours it takes me, so if a short build takes out a recurring six-figure loss then that is what it is worth. If what you have described will not pay for itself, I would rather tell you so on the scoping call than invoice you for finding out.
About me
I spent most of about twenty years in and around manufacturing as a consultant, implementing ERP and MES systems across automotive, medical, plastics, metal forming, food and beverage and industrial distribution, in plants doing stamping, molding, machining, plating and process work. I have been the one walking into a plant on a Monday to sort something out, so I understand why you would not want to hand a client over to a software vendor. After that I spent five years running product for a supply-chain software vendor, where the job was mostly turning what customers could not quite describe into something engineering could build.
Along the way I ran services delivery for a nine-person team, carried the P&L on a product line, spent two years as COO of a clinical-research company, and co-founded a retail business that I built up and sold.
What has changed recently is how much one person can build. AI-assisted development has made small projects economical that used to need a team and a budget cycle, and that happens to be the size of project your clients keep needing.
About the name
My daughter could not say “because” when she was small. She said:
kebuzzYears ago, I bought the name in anticipation of starting this consulting company.
Found an operational problem that needs software?
Tell me roughly what it is and what it is costing, and I will tell you whether it is something I can build. If I am not the right answer I will say so and point you somewhere else.