NZ's largest ISO/FDA certified precision manufacturer

Note on identification. This case study is de-identified while the named client reviews the final numbers. The shop, the decisions, and the outcomes are real. Only the company name, specific figures, and identifying photographs are redacted pending sign-off. The named version replaces this file the moment the client clears it.

The shop

A New Zealand precision manufacturer. ISO 13485 (medical devices) and FDA 21 CFR 820 certified. The shop machines titanium, 316 stainless, medical-grade polymers, and a steady run of aerospace aluminium. A mixed fleet — 5-axis machining centres, Swiss-type lathes, and a handful of older 3-axis VMCs retained for specific legacy jobs.

The toolroom had "worked the same way for fifteen years" — the supervisor's phrase, not ours. A physical crib, a spreadsheet for the top-spend SKUs, handwritten scrap notes in logbooks, and a rhythm of Monday-morning stockouts that had become part of the weekly texture of the floor.

Why they engaged Niyamis

The trigger was a quarterly cost review. The plant manager wanted to find six figures of annual savings on the tool budget without compromising quality on medical-device work. Two routes had been tried and rejected:

• Cheaper-sticker procurement — tried in 2023, produced a scrap spike on a specific stainless part, quietly reversed within a quarter.
• A traditional tool-crib ERP bolt-on — priced too high for the shop's fleet size and would have required eight weeks of IT work the shop didn't have capacity for.

We got the call because a peer shop in Auckland recommended the Niyamis Diagnose week as a different shape: two weeks on the floor, baseline measured, and a go/no-go on further engagement at the end.

The Diagnose week — what we found

Three patterns surfaced in the shop's 18-month transaction history that the team hadn't noticed:

1. Three different SKUs for what was functionally the same 10 mm end-mill — one from each of three vendors. Each bought on its own PO cycle, minimums set in isolation, and no single number showing which brand was actually cheapest per part. The top-SKU alone accounted for roughly 8% of annual tool spend.
2. A machine-specific scrap cluster on one of the 5-axis machines that had been there for months. Operators had written it up in SCRAP notes dozens of times; nobody had read the notes together. The cluster spanned alloys, operators and tool brands — a clear signal that the machine itself, not the tooling, was the issue.
3. A PO-workflow bottleneck: reorders sat in DRAFT state over weekends. One Monday in five started with a stockout.

Baseline measurements taken at the end of the Diagnose week:

• Tool spend: baseline set to TK annualised.
• Scrap rate: baseline at TK% across all alloys, with the 5-axis machine above flagged at TK%.
• Stockouts: TK per month, averaged over the preceding quarter.

The plant manager green-lit the Deploy phase on the Friday.

What Niyamis deployed — weeks 2 through 4

Week 2 — crib deployment

The Niyamis TMS tenant was provisioned during the Diagnose week. Monday of week 2, we imported the 18 months of transaction history, reconciled the assembly IDs against the shop's GibbsCAM records, and merged the three duplicate 10 mm end-mill SKUs into a single record with a single history. The crib UI went live by Wednesday. Training happened Thursday. By Friday the supervisor was running the crib from TMS for a full day.

Week 3 — terminal deployment

The operator terminal went onto the floor Monday. One-tap TAKE, RETURN, SCRAP and REFILL, with RFID sign-in. Each operator walked through the flow with a Niyamis consultant. By Thursday, every transaction on the floor was landing in TMS in real time. The first Brand Scorecards populated by Friday.

Week 4 — measure

The first weekly cadence review was Monday of week 4. Supervisor, CAM engineer, plant manager, Niyamis consultant. Forty-five minutes.

The output was actionable on the spot:

• Brand shift approved on the top-SKU end-mill based on per-alloy performance.
• A spindle calibration scheduled on the flagged 5-axis machine.
• PO auto-approval threshold set for preferred vendors at $500 NZD.

What changed in three months

Numbers and final percentages sit in the named version of this story. The shape of the change, as recorded in the shop's own transaction data:

• Brand consolidation on the top-SKU. The PO pattern for the 10 mm end-mill consolidated onto a single winning brand for the dominant alloy, with a secondary brand kept for aluminium work. Tool spend on that SKU dropped measurably.
• Scrap rate drop on the 5-axis machine. The spindle calibration took two hours; scrap rate on that machine halved within a fortnight.
• Stockout elimination. Auto-approval and rebased minimums took the Monday-morning stockout pattern from typical to rare within six weeks.
• Supervisor time recovered. The supervisor's Monday morning shifted from three reactive hours to under thirty minutes of alert-inbox work.

In her words

Placeholder quote. The named, cleared quote from the shop's toolroom supervisor ships with the named version of this story.

Secondary photos

• Shop floor — crib. Photo credit pending permission.
• Shop floor — terminal in operation. Photo credit pending permission.
• Dashboard screenshot from live Accord data. Cleared version lands with named story.

What this shop is doing now

Currently in the Improve phase of the Niyamis engagement. Each quarter, we add a new analytics layer specific to the shop's priorities. The most recent addition surfaced a coolant-concentration pattern across three machines that correlated with a winter-quarter drift in a specific SCRAP note phrase. That work is now feeding a cross-shop comparison template we're building out for other medical-sector clients.

What you can take from this story

If your shop has 18 months of transaction history, a toolroom supervisor who writes things down, and a crib that looks full but doesn't feel under control — the floor you work on probably has the same shape of upside we found here. The Diagnose week is built to tell you whether that's true for your specific numbers.

Book a thirty-minute call with Philippe. We'll look at what you already have.

— Philippe, Niyamis