The whole chain on one screen including where it stalls
A COO rarely has a problem with any single step — the problem is that the steps are never seen together. Procurement knows its lead times, the warehouse knows its stock, the shop floor knows its plan, and shipping finds out something is missing on the day it was due to leave. Every one of those people is doing their job correctly and the company is still late, because a signal that arose in procurement on Monday reaches the person who could have acted on Thursday. NG One closes that gap by running the chain as one record: demand, purchase order, receipt, stock, reservation, work order, shipment and invoice are links of the same document rather than separate ledgers someone reconciles afterwards. That is why a bottleneck stops being an impression from the morning meeting and becomes a line with a document number, a quantity and a date.
- Five stock states
- MRP and reorder points
- Directed picking
- Purchase proposals
- Lot-to-lot traceability
- Bottlenecks as records
Where operations loses its days
None of this comes from people working badly. All of it comes from running the chain in pieces, so each piece knows only its own half of the truth.
“Do we have it” has three correct answers
The system shows one number — the balance. A salesperson concludes they can sell it, the warehouse operator knows half of it was picked for yesterday's order, and procurement knows more is in transit but has not landed. All three answers are true and mutually incompatible, so the promise to the customer is made on a feel. The error does not surface that day but on the day of dispatch, when it is already expensive.
Procurement starts once something has already stopped
The reorder point lives in one person's head and the requirements plan lives in a spreadsheet refreshed when someone gets to it. Until the signal becomes a problem, nobody sees it; by the time it does, the supplier's lead time is what it was a week ago — only now it is a week shorter than the need. Expediting becomes the normal mode, and the normal mode is paid for through price, freight and concessions nobody measures.
The warehouse runs on memory rather than on tasks
Where the goods are is known by whoever put them away, so every new hire takes months and one absence slows the whole shift. A stock count means halting the company for a day or two, variances are explained afterwards, and expiry is tracked on a list in the office instead of by the order things are issued in. All of it works — until volume grows, or until a complaint arrives that requires you to say where one lot went.
The plan is a spreadsheet recalculated by hand
One moved order means rebuilding the whole week, so the plan changes rarely and reluctantly — not because it is good, but because changing it is expensive. Subcontracting drops out of view the moment goods leave the premises, consumption is recorded on paper and typed in at night, and the actual cost of a work order lands long after the order is closed. The floor knows how things really stand; the system finds out one shift later.
The bottleneck is admitted only once a delivery is late
There is no place where the whole chain is visible at once, so the stall is discovered backwards — by reconstruction, in a meeting, from what people remember. The discussion is therefore about blame rather than about the link: everyone shows that their part was done on time, and everyone is right. Without a shared record there is also no difference between a stall that repeats and one that happened once, so the same problem is solved from scratch every time.
How NG One answers
One decision carries the rest: the links of the chain are states of the same record, not separate ledgers to be reconciled. Availability that cannot diverge and a bottleneck with a document number both follow from it.
Five stock states instead of one number
Stock is carried through five states — physical, reserved, available, on order and in transit — so “do we have it” has one answer everyone sees the same way. A reservation is created on the sales order and holds the quantity until dispatch, so the same pallet cannot be promised twice. The item ledger card shows every movement with the document that produced it, and visibility and rights are set per warehouse — someone at one site does not decide about another site's stock, because they do not see it as theirs.
A warehouse that issues the task, instead of looking for the person who remembers
Receiving, put-away, picking, packing and shipping run as tasks on a handheld, with a barcode and confirmation at the point of work — so a new operator works on day one and the shift does not depend on one person's memory. Above that sits an advanced layer for companies that have outgrown the basics: bin locations and zones with capacities, directed put-away and directed picking, wave and batch picking, zone replenishment, cross-docking, and cycle counting that counts as you go instead of halting the company. Lot, serial number and expiry drive a FEFO sequence, so the question of where one batch went is answered by a search rather than a reconstruction.
A plan that is recalculated, not retyped
MRP derives what to buy and what to make from the sales plan, bills of material and stock, with dates that respect supplier lead times and production times. The Production Grid and the planner cockpit show work-centre load, and what-if scenarios let a moved order be tried before it becomes a decision — the plan stops being expensive to change, so it changes when it should. A work order carries material requisition, confirmation of output and labour from a shop-floor terminal, and actual costing; subcontracting stays in view even while the goods are with the partner.
Procurement that starts before something is missing
A purchase proposal is built from a real signal — the reorder point, open orders, supplier lead times and consumption history — and it arrives as a proposal, not as an order: the quantity, supplier and date are confirmed by a person, and approval carries limits, escalation and segregation of duties. The receipt links to the purchase order, the supplier invoice to the receipt, and three-way matching with tolerances stops the gap between ordered, received and invoiced while it is still cheap. Landed costs, customs and exchange rates enter the purchase value, so the cost of goods is a sum rather than an estimate.
Shipping out of the same flow that reserved the goods
Dispatch leaves the sales order that already reserved the quantity, so there is no step in which the existence of the goods is checked again. Packing produces the SSCC and the packing list, the electronic delivery note goes through SEO, and fleet and delivery planning connect the route with the documents riding on it. Customer returns and returnable packaging come back into the same record instead of living as a separate list, and warehouse KPIs measure work from tasks actually completed — in your data, not in our brochure.
The bottleneck as a line with a document number
A stall is shown where it arose — an order waiting on material, material waiting on a receipt, a receipt waiting on a purchase order — with quantity, date and a document that opens. Anomaly detection on the floor and in stock singles out deviations an average hides, and every flag carries the reason the record was singled out: an alert without a reason is muted within a week and becomes noise after that. Because every link sits in the same record, the difference between a stall that repeats and one that happened once is visible without anyone reconstructing it.
A COO's chain
The same flow the Atlas draws as procurement, planning and delivery, seen from the chair of the person answerable when the goods do not leave.
- Step 1
The demand signal
Demand arises from the plan and from stock, not from a remark that something has run out.
- Sales and production plan as input to MRP
- Reorder point and minimum stock per item
- Demand forecasting over consumption history
- Purchase proposal with supplier and date
- Step 2
Purchasing and receiving
The purchase order is a decision with a limit and a trace; the receipt closes that decision rather than opening a new entry.
- Purchase requisition and approval with escalation
- Requests for quotation, bids and selection
- Goods receipt from the order, with variances
- Three-way matching with tolerances
- Step 3
Stock and warehouse
Goods acquire a place and a state at the moment of receipt, so searching is the system's job rather than a person's.
- Put-away by zone, bin location and capacity
- Lot, serial number and expiry with FEFO
- Internal transfers and in-transit stock
- Cycle counting without halting operations
- Step 4
The order on the floor
The order carries material, time and cost — so the cost of goods is known while the order is still running.
- Work order from MRP or from a sales order
- Requisition and material issue by bill of material
- Output and labour confirmation from terminals
- Subcontracting and actual costing of the order
- Step 5
Delivery
Dispatch is the last step of the same document, not a new flow with a new check.
- Picking and packing confirmed on the handheld
- SSCC, packing list and electronic delivery note
- Delivery planning and fleet
- Customer returns and returnable packaging
- Step 6
Measurement and bottlenecks
The goal is not a report on last week but the link that repeats and is worth changing.
- Warehouse KPIs from tasks actually completed
- Stalls with document, quantity and date
- Anomaly detection with the reason for the flag
- Lot-to-lot traceability for complaints and recalls
The spaces that carry this solution
A solution is neither a separate product nor a separate licence. It is the same system seen from one angle, and these business spaces carry most of the work this page describes.
Procurement and suppliers
From need to payment: purchase orders, receipts, invoices, and a landed cost that stays correct after customs arrives late.
30 capabilitiesInventory and logistics
Stock on hand, goods in motion and value on the ledger — one record, reconciled at all times.
30 capabilitiesProduction and operations
Engineering data, planning, shop floor, quality and projects in one flow — with a product cost that is not assembled after the fact.
30 capabilities
Questions about this solution
Scope, boundaries, and the rules this entry point works by.
How do I know whether I can promise a date to a customer?
By availability no longer being a single number. Stock is carried through five states — physical, reserved, available, on order and in transit — so the sales order shows what is free today, what has already been promised to another order, and what is inbound and when. The reservation is created as the order is entered and holds the quantity until dispatch, so the same pallet cannot be promised twice. What the system cannot do is guarantee that a supplier will arrive on time or that the floor will not stop — it can only show you that the day it changes, instead of on the day of dispatch.
What do I get with the advanced WMS, and what do I get without it?
Without the advanced layer you get full warehouse operation: receiving and put-away, picking, packing and shipping as tasks on a handheld, barcodes and confirmation at the point of work, lot and expiry with a FEFO sequence, internal transfers, stock counts and variance handling. That is enough for a great many companies, and there is no reason to buy more than the work requires. The advanced layer adds what only makes sense at volume: bin locations and zones with capacities, directed put-away and directed picking, wave and batch picking, zone replenishment, cross-docking, and cycle counting that counts as you go. The line between the two is not a matter of price but of whether your warehouse has zones and capacities worth managing — and that is a question we answer in the analysis of your scope, before you sign anything.
Who decides on a purchase — the system or a person?
A person, always. The system assembles a proposal from signals someone otherwise holds in their head: the reorder point, open orders and reservations, supplier lead times and consumption history. The result is a proposal with a quantity, a supplier and a date — confirming, editing and rejecting are equal outcomes and all stay in the trace. When the proposal becomes a purchase order, approval limits, escalation and segregation of duties apply, so the person requesting the purchase is not the person approving it. Unattended ordering does not exist as default behaviour: where a company explicitly enables it, it runs on a deterministic rule you set, not on a model's estimate.
What happens when the plan changes mid-shift?
It is recalculated rather than retyped. MRP returns a new picture of requirements from the changed plan, the bills of material and stock, while the Production Grid and the planner cockpit show how the change lands on work-centre load. What-if scenarios exist precisely for this: a moved order is tried and compared before it becomes a decision, so changing the plan stops being expensive and therefore stops being rare. What does not change is the trace — every amendment to an order stays recorded, so afterwards you know not only what was decided but what the alternative was.
How does a bottleneck become visible before a delivery is late?
Because the links are states of the same record rather than separate ledgers. An order waiting on material is tied to the material waiting on a receipt, and the receipt to a purchase order with the supplier's date — so the wait is shown where it arose, with quantity, date and a document that opens. Alongside it runs anomaly detection in stock and on the floor, which singles out deviations an average hides, and every flag carries the reason the record was singled out. How many days earlier you will see it depends on how early your data enters the system — we do not know that number in advance and we will not invent it.
What does early enrolment bring for operations specifically?
The discount is the easy part: 40% off the solution price for enrolments by 1 September 2026, against a 10% reservation advance. For a COO the sequence is worth more. An ERP rollout has decisions taken once and changed only with difficulty afterwards: the structure of warehouses and zones, how lots and expiry are handled, the tolerances in three-way matching, purchase approval limits, and whether you plan to order or to stock. Early enrolment means those decisions run through your floor and your warehouse while the scope is still being established — walking your processes is the first step of the programme, not the last. Later, the same thing is a request added to a list, with goods already being run under someone else's template.
Related solutions
Test NG One against your own chain
Book a working review for operations. We walk your flow from the demand signal to dispatch — your warehouse structure, the way you plan, supplier lead times, and the points where your chain breaks today — on your documents, in the system.