Materials in a notebook
The store book is accurate on Monday and out of date by Wednesday, so nobody knows what a new job will actually consume.
Manufacturing operations - Kenya and East Africa
The factory floor already talks. Now it is on record.
A welder with a feature phone reports a stopped machine. The stock count leaves the notebook. The owner sees the order that is about to slip, and why. Mzalendo runs the whole operation from a browser, and reaches every worker over USSD and SMS.
No smartphones, no data bundles and no ERP licence. A dashboard for whoever runs the business, a short code for everyone else.
Safaricom
*384*11982#
MZALENDO - Kariobangi Metal
1. My tasks
2. Report production
3. Report stock
4. Machine problem
5. Safety incident
6. Attendance
Works on any handset sold in Kenya.
The problem
The information exists. It is just scattered across six places.
Orders in WhatsApp
Quantities, deadlines and price changes sit in a chat thread that cannot be sorted, counted or handed over.
Suppliers by phone call
Nobody can say which supplier delivers on time, so the reorder goes to whoever answers first.
Schedules on paper
A plan on the wall does not know that the aluminium ran out this morning.
Machines fixed from memory
A press is serviced when it fails, and the fault that keeps returning is never counted.
Workers told verbally
The instruction reaches the person standing nearby. Everyone else finds out late.
Manufacturing Pulse
A score is useless. A reason and an action are not.
Mzalendo reads five dimensions of the business every time you open it, and when something moves it says what moved it. Not "inventory 61%", but which material is short, how the shortage was calculated, and which supplier to call.
Example signal
Gloss enamel is short by 6 litres
Stock is 9 litres, committed production needs 15 litres, and nothing is on order. Minimum level is 15 litres.
Do this: raise a purchase order with Crown Paints Depot for 30 litres.
Five dimensions, weighted
-
Production weight 25%
Runs behind pace, behind plan, or short of material
-
Inventory weight 25%
Stock against committed demand, not against yesterday
-
Orders weight 20%
Deadlines passed and deadlines about to pass
-
Maintenance weight 18%
Machines down, services overdue, tickets going stale
-
Suppliers weight 12%
On-time delivery and fill rate from your own receipts
These are rules over your own records, not a prediction. Every number on the dashboard can be traced back to a stock movement, a purchase order or a stage you closed.
Capabilities
One system, two front doors.
Browser, for whoever runs the business
- Inventory with projected shortfall, not just a count
- Production plans dated stage by stage from the bill of materials
- Orders from enquiry to dispatch, with the customer kept informed
- Purchase orders, receipts and supplier reliability from your own history
- Quality checklists that hold a job before it leaves
- Machine register, service intervals and fault tickets
USSD and SMS, for everyone else
- Workers see assigned tasks and report completed quantities
- Stock counts entered from the store, straight into the ledger
- Machine faults raised in four keypresses, technician alerted by SMS
- Safety incidents reported without finding a supervisor first
- Shift check-in and check-out with no attendance book
- Customers and suppliers updated automatically by SMS
Built on the Africa's Talking USSD and SMS APIs. Without API credentials the app runs in simulation and records every message it would have sent, so the whole product can be demonstrated before a short code is provisioned.
Pricing
Priced for a workshop, not a plant.
Starter
USD 5
per month
Up to 5 workers, 1 facility
- Inventory and orders
- USSD worker menu
- SMS alerts
- Manufacturing Pulse
Business
USD 15
per month
Up to 25 workers, 2 facilities
- Everything in Starter
- Production planning
- Quality checklists
- Supplier reliability
- Purchase orders
Enterprise
Custom
billed annually
Unlimited workers and facilities
- Everything in Business
- Dedicated instance
- Custom USSD short code
- Data export and audit trail
Put the workshop on record this week.
Register the business, add your materials and machines, and send your team the short code. Nothing else needs to change on the floor.