How to evaluate factory software: twelve questions that expose a demo
Every factory software demo is impressive, because demos are rehearsed on data chosen to behave. The way through is not skepticism in general but specific questions whose answers are hard to fake. Twelve that earn their place in the meeting:
On truth and drill-down
1. Take any number on this dashboard and show me the records behind it, now. The defining test. If the drill ends at a chart rather than documents, the number is decoration.
2. Where does this figure live, and how many other places store their own copy? One fact, one home. Systems that sync copies eventually disagree with themselves.
3. Show me an empty state. Pick a screen with no data. Does it explain its precondition, or render a zero that could mean anything? Honest software is honest when it has nothing to show.
On your process, not theirs
4. Here is our real style. Enter it. Bring a tech pack, a size ratio, an operation list with SMVs. Watch whether the system holds your reality natively or the presenter starts saying you would track that outside.
5. What happens when a dye batch fails shade at 14:00? Trace the consequence through their screens: fabric store, cutting plan, order dates, merchandiser view. Count the manual steps.
6. How do you model WIP? If work in progress appears as a stock balance, quantities will rot. WIP is a production lifecycle, not inventory.
On the floor
7. Show the screen a line supervisor uses, on a phone, and time an entry. More than thirty seconds per capture and the floor will stop feeding it within a month, and everything downstream starves.
8. What does an operator see when something goes wrong? An alert should carry the number that decides the action and the action beside it. An alert that says red and nothing else is a lamp.
On lock-in and truth over time
9. Export our data, all of it, right now. Watch how long it takes and what shape emerges. The answer is the price of ever leaving.
10. Show me the audit trail for a record someone edited. Who, when, previous value, new value. If history can be silently rewritten, so can accountability.
11. Which of the features on today's slides exist in production, and which are roadmap? Ask for the distinction in writing. The polite phrasing of this question is the whole discipline of honest claims, and vendors who practice it internally answer it without flinching.
12. Give me three formulas: line efficiency, CM cost, fabric consumption. Where does each live? If the same formula exists in several modules, they will disagree eventually. One implementation, referenced everywhere, is the mark of a system built to stay truthful.
Using the list
Send the questions ahead of the demo. The vendors who welcome them are telling you something; so are the ones who reschedule. And weigh answers, not polish: a plain screen that drills to documents beats a beautiful one that ends at a chart.