Before Oplit: Excel files and decisions made in the dark

The way CGR International's teams describe their organization before Oplit is strikingly candid. “Before Oplit, we were on a lot of Excel files. We had built Access databases, things developed by people who had known the company for 20 years, but now obsolete.”

This picture is familiar to anyone working in production planning in an industrial environment. Files multiply, each workshop has its own version, data is never truly up to date, and the slightest disruption — a customer emergency, a machine breakdown, a missing component — turns the day into a constant fight against chaos.

The most telling symptom? “The decisions made on Monday were very often no longer the right ones by Wednesday or Thursday.” In other words, the production plan was obsolete barely 48 hours after it was set. Under these conditions, it is impossible to meet customer commitments, anticipate bottlenecks, or even know the status of each work order.

The business consequences were painful. As one CGR manager recalls: “About ten years ago, we had 50% more staff to do 50% less revenue, while still running late. And our customer was practically running our shop floor.” A brutal assessment that reflects a reality many manufacturers know well: without reliable planning, it is the customer who ends up dictating priorities, often at the expense of overall efficiency.

The turning point: decentralize decisions, synchronize information

The transformation at CGR International did not start with a simple tool change. It is part of a broader project to decentralize decision-making roles. The goal: give the right people the right information at the right time, rather than letting information slowly trickle up to a single overwhelmed planner.

“Oplit fit into that project of decentralizing decision-making roles and having the right information at the right time.”

This is precisely the philosophy that sets a modern production planning solution apart from a spreadsheet: the ability to connect, in real time, work orders, work-center availability, subcontracting lead times, and the progress of every work order. Where Excel forces time-consuming manual updates, Oplit automatically syncs data from the ERP and delivers a consolidated, instant view of the shop floor.

What CGR's teams use day to day

Full visibility into work orders and subcontracting

The first concrete benefit cited by CGR's teams is visibility. “Knowing that today I have the work order, the quantity, the time, the subcontracting — and the visualization that helps me a lot.”

In a machining workshop, this information might seem basic — it is not. When data is scattered across the ERP, Excel files, and the planners' memory, reconstructing the real status of a work order takes hours. Production planning with Oplit is first and foremost that: a single source of truth, accessible to everyone, in real time.

Load balancing: seeing what used to be invisible

One of the most concrete accounts concerns capacity management and weekly load balancing. “When you have a 3-hour order, you can slot it in between other orders. And when you have orders of 40 or 50 hours, it means you have an operator who will be tied up all week. So now, we see it right away.”

This ability to instantly visualize the impact of an order on work-center capacity is fundamental to balanced production planning. It avoids the classic scenario: three orders this week, forty the next, with the staffing tensions and delays that follow.

Capacity decisions, formalized and simulated

Oplit has also become the tool for formalizing management decisions. “We use Oplit to formalize these decisions. If we need to increase the capacity of a work center, we change the various parameters through events. If we need to move someone from one work center to another, we lower the capacity of one to naturally raise the other.”

This simulation capability is at the heart of effective production planning. Rather than being at the mercy of disruptions, managers can test different scenarios — adding a temp worker, transferring an operator, prioritizing an urgent order — and validate the best configuration before applying it. “Once all the decisions have been made, we validate the simulation so we can say: there, that is what we want to achieve.”

Measurable gains: numbers that speak for themselves

Order-book reviews 2 to 3 times more efficient

One of the most striking metrics concerns order-book reviews with customers. Before Oplit, these meetings could last an hour to process 50 to 100 order lines. Now, “in 1 hour, I can handle 200 or 300 order-book lines. I have doubled or tripled my efficiency in terms of time and data reliability.”

For a sales manager or an industrial order-management team, this gain is considerable. Production planning is no longer a drag on the customer relationship: it becomes a lever of trust, able to immediately answer a question about part availability or the delivery date of a batch.

5 to 10 hours saved each week on data updates

The administrative burden of updating schedules is one of the top time-wasters cited by planners and schedulers. At CGR, the gain is precisely quantified: “Oplit has saved me roughly 5 to 10 hours of work per week on data updates.”

Over a year, that is between 250 and 500 hours freed up — the equivalent of 6 to 12 weeks of work for a full-time planner — that can be reallocated to real added value: analysis, simulation, supplier coordination, continuous improvement.

From chronic delays to being ahead of schedule

The most emblematic transformation remains the relationship with delays. “Before, delays were part of our life. Meaning that even in stable production, we had recurring delays. Now, we manage to be on time in an environment that is far more complex to handle.”

And what follows is even more telling: “I used to always be 2 months behind — today I am ahead.”

This result — going from a structural 2-month delay to being ahead of schedule — illustrates what reliable, agile production planning can deliver. And this, let us remember, in a context of increasing complexity, not simplification.

Reduced work-in-progress on the floor

Another tangible indicator: reduced work-in-progress (WIP). “We have clearly reduced our WIP, and you can see it on the floor.” By synchronizing workloads and smoothing flows, production planning with Oplit prevents the buildup of parts in front of bottleneck work centers — a major source of carrying costs and confusion on the shop floor.

Autonomy as a new organizational balance

One of the most unexpected effects cited by CGR International's teams is the autonomy the solution has enabled at every level of the organization.

“Today, I can do without the production meeting. We work directly and autonomously on our orders thanks to Oplit.”

This statement might seem trivial. It is not. The daily or weekly production meeting is often one of the most time-consuming and least effective rituals in a factory. It compensates for the lack of shared visibility: if everyone saw the same information in real time, many of these meetings would become unnecessary. That is exactly what Oplit does.

Production planning then becomes a distributed process, where every workshop manager, every team leader, can make informed decisions without waiting for the approval of a single central planner.

Why this transformation goes beyond a simple tool change

CGR International's story illustrates a phenomenon we regularly observe among manufacturers who adopt Oplit: the transformation is not limited to production planning. It reaches the company's decision-making culture.

When data is accessible, reliable, and shared, decisions become less contentious. Operators understand the priorities. Managers can justify their trade-offs. Customers get precise, fast answers. The supply chain becomes proactive rather than reactive.

“It is really being very close to reality and very agile in updating that now lets us simulate with complete peace of mind, and that helps us make the right decisions.”

This ability to simulate “with complete peace of mind” sums up well what every plant manager, supply chain director, and production manager is looking for: not one more tool, but the confidence of knowing that the decisions made are grounded in reality, not in estimates that are three days old.

Conclusion: what if your production planning is costing you more than you think?

CGR International's story is not an isolated case. Every week, manufacturers realize that their production planning setup is costing them wasted hours of work, customer delays, inflated WIP, and a widespread loss of trust.

The good news: these problems are solvable, and often faster than you would think. Oplit deploys in two weeks, integrates natively with existing ERPs, and requires no particular IT skills from the teams.

If you recognize yourself in CGR International's situation before Oplit — Excel overflowing, data always lagging, endless production meetings, unhappy customers — it may be time to consider a different approach to your production planning.

👉Discover all of Oplit's features to understand how our solution adapts to your shop floor.

👉 Read our other customer stories to see how other manufacturers have transformed their production management.