Customer Overview
LBU Inc. has been manufacturing handbags and soft goods out of New Jersey for years, building a reputation for quality and consistency in a competitive domestic market. Their operation spans multiple assembly stations and handles a wide range of styles and SKUs simultaneously. As demand grew, so did the complexity of coordinating materials, labor, and production schedules across the floor. The business had the volume and the people, and what it lacked was the infrastructure to manage all of it in real time. Decisions were being made on yesterday's numbers, and the gap between what was happening on the floor and what leadership could see was getting wider.
Business Challenges
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Production Had No Central View
LBU's floor ran across several stations at once, but no one had a clear picture of where things stood at any given moment. Work-in-progress lived in spreadsheets that got updated when someone had time to update them. Bottlenecks would brew for hours before they showed up anywhere. By the time a supervisor caught a problem, it had already pushed the schedule back. Nothing was flagged in real time. Everything was found out after the fact.
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Labor and Materials Slipped Through the Gaps
Labor hours were written down by hand, which made them a rough estimate more than a record. There was no way to know how long a specific task took at a specific station, or which operators were being stretched thin. Materials had the same problem. Fabric and components were moved from storage to the floor without a controlled process behind it. Things got misallocated. Scrap piled up without clear reasons. And at month-end, what the floor consumed and what the books reflected rarely matched up cleanly.
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Month-End Was Always a Scramble
Because production data was never fed directly into the finance function, the accounting team spent the end of every month trying to piece together what actually happened on the floor. Per-unit costs were hard to calculate with any confidence. Margin visibility was limited. Reconciliation took longer than it should have, and the numbers that came out of it were still based on estimates in several places. The floor and the finance team were working from different pictures of the same operation.
AI Tools & Techstack
Technologies Used to Enhance the Website
React
Google Cloud
Solution Overview
Matech CO embedded with LBU's teams before writing a single line of code, like mapping every station, workflow, and handoff to build a system that fits the floor, not the other way around.
A Custom Platform for End-to-End Production Control
- Work Order Lifecycle Management
- Real-Time WIP Visibility
- Station-Level Labor Time Tracking
- Barcode-Driven Material Control
- Scrap and Rework Tracking
- QuickBooks WIP Cost Integration
Business Benefits
Where LBU Saw the Difference
Bottlenecks Got Caught Before They Spread
With real-time visibility into every station, LBU's managers could spot bottlenecks before they compounded. Workloads became easier to balance across the line, idle time dropped, and daily throughput increased. Decisions that once relied on gut feel or end-of-day reports were now backed by live data, which meant faster responses and fewer disruptions to the production schedule.
Labor Reporting Became Audit-Ready
Accurate station-level time capture changed how LBU tracked productivity. Each operator's output was measurable, overtime patterns became visible, and workforce planning shifted from reactive to data-driven. Labor cost reporting went from a rough estimate to an audit-ready record. The business didn't add headcount as it got more out of the one it already had.
Material Loss Reduced Significantly
Controlled material issue via barcode scanning meant nothing left the inventory room without being logged against a work order. Fabric tracking went to the roll level, scrap was categorized and recorded at the source, and the gap between theoretical and actual material consumption narrowed considerably. Waste became visible, and once visible, it became manageable.
Month-End Stopped Being a Scramble
With WIP data flowing directly into QuickBooks, month-end reconciliation became a straightforward process instead of a scramble. Per-unit costs were accurate, variances were caught early, and margin reporting reflected what was actually happening on the floor. LBU's finance team went into each close with clean, traceable data rather than approximations pieced together from disconnected sources.
Want the Same Visibility for Your Floor?
If your production operation is still running on manual records and disconnected systems, we'd like to show you what's possible. Tell us about your process and we'll take it from there.