Simon G. by Groma

Simon G. / Manufacturing / Excel alternative

An Excel alternative for production planning.

The planning spreadsheet does a real job, by hand. Simon G. is production planning software that does it every night, beside your ERP, on your own server. Your planner starts with a plan to sign, not a file to rebuild.

On your own serverNo internet neededYour data shared with no one

Talk about one decision What stays, what goes

This page shows a fictional packaging-film plant, from extrusion through printing to confection.

Does this sound like your plant?

Where the spreadsheet gives way.

Excel is not the problem. The problem is what it asks of one person, every morning.

  1. The week is reworked three times. An order moves, a machine falls behind, and one person rebuilds the file.
  2. The shortage appears at the line. The file shows the plan. It does not show the material that will not arrive.
  3. Changeovers are a rule of thumb. Each one has a cost. In the file it is a guess, or nothing.
  4. Nobody can say why the plan moved. Yesterday's version is gone, and so is the reason.
  5. The cost arrives after the month closes. By then the gap is history.
  6. When the planner is away, the plan waits. Only one person knows how the file works.

What changes

Same ERP. Same planner. No morning rebuild.

Simon G. reads what your spreadsheet starts from, and does the rebuild overnight.

In Excel
  1. 01The ERP recordsorders and stock
  2. 02A planner rebuildsby hand, between other work
  3. 03The plan movesno reason · no record
With Simon G.
  1. 01The ERP recordsas it is, untouched
  2. 02Simon G. plansevery night · changeovers counted
  3. 03The planner signswhat moved, and why · recorded
On time at current plan
91 %
target 95 %; two orders need a decision
Materials late
6 lines
two suppliers to call today
Scrap, last four weeks
3.8 %
baseline, week 33: 5.1 %
Cost gap, open lots
−2.3 %
energy above standard on extruder 2

What the production manager sees first. Fictional company, example figures.

What stays, what goes

The spreadsheets go. The ERP stays.

Nothing new to learn. People arrive to a list of prepared decisions, a reason beside each. The whole picture is on the manufacturing page.

What stays

  • Your ERP. Nothing is written back to it
  • Your planner, who signs what goes to the floor
  • Your order e-mails, read as they are
  • Your exports, spreadsheets included

What goes

  • The morning rebuild of the week
  • Changeovers by rule of thumb
  • Materials found late, at the line
  • The plan nobody can explain

How it gets there

We do the work. You prepare nothing.

  1. You say what hurtsOne conversation, with the person who owns the plan.
  2. We read your dataOrders, routings, stock and machine hours, with your IT beside us for a few hours.
  3. Your planner signsEvery night the plan is ready, with its reasons beside it.

What it does not do

Plainly.

  1. It does not control machines.It reads the floor's reports.
  2. It does not replace the planner.It proposes. The planner decides.
  3. It does not post to the ERP.Orders and receipts stay where they are.
Your data stays yours.Shared with no one, not even through a chatbot.
Deterministic. No internet needed.The same inputs give the same plan, traceable step by step.
No implementation budget.No implementation project on your side, so no budget line for one.

Questions a planner asks first

Short answers.

Does it replace our ERP or our planning spreadsheets?

The spreadsheets, not the ERP. It reads what the ERP records and prepares the plan the spreadsheets were trying to prepare, with evidence and a record. It never writes back.

Will our planner lose control of the plan?

No. It proposes; the planner signs the version that goes to the floor. A rejection is written down with its reason. If the reason is a rule or a limit, a person changes it, and the next proposal follows.

Can it read our existing spreadsheets?

Yes. It reads exports from the systems you have, spreadsheets included. It never asks for passwords.

What do we have to prepare?

Nothing. We take the exports ourselves, with your IT beside us for a few hours, and set Simon G. up for your plant. There is no implementation project and no budget for one on your side.

Is this artificial intelligence?

The engine is deterministic: the same inputs give the same plan, and every step can be traced. An assistant on your own server may explain a proposal in plain words. It does not decide, and no company data goes to a cloud model.

Where does our data go?

Nowhere. It runs on your own server with no internet connection, and your data is shared with no one: not other companies, not us, not a chatbot.

Start with one decision

Bring one decision your company takes badly or too late.

Thirty minutes with a founder. We go through how Simon G. would prepare it and say in writing whether it fits.

We give the fees in the first conversation. How the pilot works. Losing margin to scrap? See scrap tracking.

We reply within one working day, from office@gromasystems.com. No newsletter, no sequence.