Most manufacturers are stuck between ignoring AI and chasing it through fragmented experiments that never produce operational value. We help leadership teams identify where AI creates real value, assess organizational readiness, and build a credible roadmap.
Manufacturing leaders are under pressure to adopt AI — but the available options aren't working. Vendor pilots stay disconnected from real plant operations. Prompt-engineering workshops produce enthusiasm without execution. Internal experiments fragment across departments without governance or strategy.
Meanwhile, the opportunities that matter — engineering throughput, knowledge retention, maintenance support, proposal velocity — go unaddressed.
The organizations getting AI right aren't deploying tools. They're redesigning how knowledge and decisions move through their operations. That requires a different kind of engagement.
Most AI advisors come from software, consulting, or research. They speak the language of models and prompts, not control systems, speed curves, and shift handovers.
Plantworks is built by the former CEO of Hagen & Company — the firm that pioneered Zero Loss Analysis — and the author of Zero to Hero, the Deloitte methodology paper that introduced Zero Loss Analysis to their global Process & Industrial Products practice in 2009. The methodology has been applied across forty years of plant analysis work in industrial automation, CPG, food and beverage, and process manufacturing. The advisory practice is the AI-era delivery vehicle for a body of work that has been compounding for decades.
The result is an engagement that speaks both languages — and prioritizes operational credibility over AI theater.
Forty years in industrial automation, process control, and operational transformation. Former CEO of Hagen & Company. Author of Zero to Hero (Deloitte, 2009) and a forthcoming book on Open Process Automation.
Pioneered at Hagen & Company. Published in Zero to Hero (Deloitte, 2009). Refined across forty years of practice. Extended for the AI era.
Find the binding constraint in your line — including how it shifts by SKU. Apply control factor analysis to identify what's actually limiting it, replacing brainstorming with measurement. Convert recovered capacity into incremental revenue or cost savings, depending on whether you're production- or demand-constrained. Rebase the plant accounting system so the gains are visible to finance — because constraints move faster than standard costs do, and the work doesn't stick until both are aligned.
Reduce the hours engineers spend searching specs, drawings, standards, and historical project data. Put institutional engineering knowledge at their fingertips.
Capture institutional knowledge before it walks out the door. Put diagnostic guidance, historical fixes, and equipment context in front of technicians at the moment they need it.
Compress proposal cycles, improve technical accuracy, and free senior engineers from repetitive scoping and documentation work that doesn't require their judgment.
Make the organization's collective expertise searchable, current, and governable — so it survives turnover, scales across sites, and informs daily decisions.
A structured methodology for evaluating AI initiatives across four dimensions — so your organization invests in the right opportunities, in the right sequence, with the right governance in place.
Where does AI move metrics that leadership actually tracks?
What's realistic given current systems, data, and team capacity?
Are the workflows, governance, and adoption conditions in place?
What controls, boundaries, and oversight are required?
The methodology paper that introduced Zero Loss Analysis to Deloitte's global Process & Industrial Products practice. Authored by Trevor Cusworth as Director, drawing on the methodology pioneered at Hagen & Company. Establishes the gap between reported efficiency and true potential, the failure modes of cost accounting and benchmarking, and the four-step methodology — illustrated with case examples from CPG, food & beverage, and brewing operations. Republished in the Operational Excellence Society Body of Knowledge.
Read on opexsociety.org →Book-length treatment of OPA and the O-PAS standards, written for executives and engineering leaders navigating the move away from proprietary DCS architectures. Drafted manuscript with five appendices covering strategy, technology, and execution.
ForthcomingFor leadership teams that want to align on direction before committing to a full engagement.
A complete diagnostic and roadmap engagement for organizations ready to move from exploration to execution.
For organizations executing on their roadmap and seeking ongoing strategic guidance.
This goes directly to me, not a sales team. I read every message and respond to fits within a few business days.
Thank you. I'll review your note and reach out personally if it looks like a fit. In the meantime, feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn.