Industries
AI-assisted software development for manufacturing
Operational tooling around production — quality tracking, inventory apps and supplier portals — built to your plant's process and kept out of the control loop.
Ciao is an AI-assisted engineering platform manufacturers use to build operational tools around production — quality and CAPA trackers, inventory apps and supplier portals. Ciao apps live on the IT side of the line, reading the exports and APIs your ERP, MES and historian already produce, never the control loop. Unlike spreadsheet workarounds, they ship with role-based access, recorded change review and an append-only audit trail your quality system can use.
Published 2026-07-03 · Last updated 2026-07-03
The ERP knows the orders. The clipboard knows the truth.
The ERP holds orders, BOMs and inventory records; the MES and historian hold production data. Everything else that keeps a plant running — nonconformance reports, CAPA follow-ups, cycle counts, maintenance requests, supplier document chasing, shift handover — lives on paper forms, Excel and shared drives. Plant IT is often one person, corporate IT is far away, and the operational technology team is rightly protective of anything near the line.
The cost shows up at audit time and in the quality system. An ISO 9001 surveillance audit or a customer audit means days of assembling evidence from binders and file shares. The NCR-to-CAPA loop leaks because follow-ups live in a monthly meeting agenda. Supplier certifications expire quietly in a folder nobody opens until receiving flags a problem. And traceability expectations keep rising — customers now ask how fast you can trace a lot from receipt to shipment, and the honest answer at most plants involves three systems and a person who is on holiday.
Ciao builds this operational layer as real software, fast: a quality engineer or plant manager describes the workflow, and the resulting app ships with roles, history and recorded change review — the properties your quality system has wanted from these workflows all along. And a boundary stated plainly: Ciao apps live on the IT side of the line. They read the exports and APIs your systems produce and never sit in the control loop.
What manufacturers build on Ciao
NCR and CAPA tracker
Nonconformance captured at the line with photos, disposition decisions, CAPA tasks and effectiveness verification — the closed loop your quality manual describes and your spreadsheet does not enforce.
Production visibility dashboard
Output, downtime reasons and schedule attainment assembled from MES and historian exports — the morning-meeting picture without the hour of preparation before the morning meeting.
Inventory and cycle-count app
Tablet-friendly counts with variance review queues and adjustment approvals that write back through your process — replacing printed count sheets and evening rekeying.
Supplier portal
POs, ASNs, certifications, quality documents and scorecards exchanged in one login — with expiration tracking, so a lapsed cert is an alert rather than a receiving-dock discovery.
Maintenance request and PM tracker
Work requests with priorities and history per asset, plus preventive maintenance schedules with completion records — the memory the radio call never had.
Shift handover log
Structured handovers with open issues, safety notes and follow-ups carried across shifts — searchable history instead of a notebook by the supervisor's desk.
Gauge and calibration tracker
Calibration schedules, certificates and out-of-tolerance investigations tied to each instrument — audit-ready by construction.
Why plant tooling needs more than a form builder
Tools the line depends on have production stakes, and tools the quality system depends on have audit stakes — a quality tracker that loses data is worse than the paper it replaced. Both sets of stakes shape what the platform underneath has to provide.
- Changes are controlled, and provably so — Guardrails applies plain-English policies and records named human review on serious changes — controlled change for quality-relevant tools, with evidence generated automatically.
- Updates cannot break a shift — QA runs deterministic browser replays with smoke gates before publish and production checks after — a cycle-count app does not get to fail mid-inventory.
- Roles mirror the plant — Operators log, quality dispositions, supervisors approve — role-based access control with SSO keeps duties separated the way your procedures already require.
- Someone is watching the tool — Doctor probes the live app and drafts fixes; SysOps covers rollback — operational support that does not depend on the one IT person being on site.
Evidence your quality system can use
Quality systems run on documented, controlled change. These are the controls a Ciao-built tool brings to your next surveillance or customer audit:
- ✓ Named human review recorded on changes to quality-relevant tools
- ✓ Append-only audit trail across prompts, merges, deploys and admin actions
- ✓ Role-based access control separating operators, quality and supervision
- ✓ SSO via SAML and OIDC for plant and corporate identity
- ✓ Deployment to your own cloud, private VPC, or on-prem under separate terms for restricted networks
- ✓ SOC 2 Type II reports available under NDA for corporate vendor review
IT-side by design: your systems stay the record
The ERP remains the record for orders and inventory; the MES and historian remain the record for production. Ciao-built apps consume the exports, extracts and APIs those systems already produce, and write back through the interfaces and approval steps your process defines. Nothing Ciao builds touches PLCs, SCADA or anything in the control loop — a boundary your OT team can hold us to. That separation also simplifies review: the security conversation is about a web app reading exports, never about anything with a safety case attached.
For manufacturers with existing custom systems, custom sandbox images wrap AI-assisted engineering around Java, Python, Node and other backends, so the plant's existing software estate can be extended rather than encircled.
Multi-plant groups compound the problem — every site solves the same workflow differently, so nothing rolls up. Building the workflow once and deploying it per site, with local fields where sites genuinely differ, gives the group comparable data for the first time, and Conductor keeps every plant's tools on one screen for the people responsible for all of them.
How a plant tool ships
The person who owns the procedure describes it; quality and IT review at the plan and the merge; the floor gets a tool shaped like the work.
1. Describe
A quality engineer or plant manager writes the workflow in plain language — forms, roles, dispositions, escalations.
2. Plan
Ciao returns a scoped plan showing data sources and roles, reviewed by plant IT and quality before building.
3. Build
The app is built in real code, shaped for the tablets and kiosk browsers on the floor.
4. Test
QA replays the shop-floor flows — NCR raised, disposition recorded, CAPA verified — before publish.
5. Govern
Guardrails records named review on changes, keeping the quality system's change control intact.
6. Deploy and monitor
The tool ships to your chosen environment; Doctor watches it live across shifts.
Plant workflows, before and after
The left column survives because it works — until an audit, a recall drill or a lost cert proves it never really did. The right column is the same work with history attached.
| Workflow | Today | Ciao-built |
|---|---|---|
| NCR and CAPA | Paper forms and a monthly review | Captured at the line, tracked to verification |
| Supplier documents | Email chases and folders | Portal with status and expiration alerts |
| Cycle counts | Printed sheets, rekeyed at night | Tablet app with variance review queues |
| Maintenance | Radio calls and sticky notes | Request queue with history per asset |
| Audit preparation | A week of gathering evidence | Audit trail and reports exported on demand |
Where plants start, and what it costs
Most plants start with the quality workflow, because the NCR-to-CAPA loop has the clearest audit payoff, then add the supplier portal once the pattern is proven. Serious development programs start at USD 10,000 per year — typically a plant-level decision made with corporate IT's blessing rather than a corporate program — and the conversation with sales works best with your current NCR form and last audit's findings in hand, because those two documents usually define the first build.
Frequently asked questions
Can Ciao-built apps integrate with our ERP and MES?
Yes, through the exports, extracts and APIs those systems already produce. The ERP and MES remain systems of record; Ciao-built apps run the tracking, review and coordination workflows around them, writing back through the interfaces your process defines.
Does anything Ciao builds touch our control systems?
No. Ciao apps live on the IT side of the line — they read exports and APIs from the ERP, MES and historian and never connect to PLCs, SCADA or the control loop. That boundary is architectural, not a configuration setting.
Will these tools work on shop-floor tablets and kiosks?
Yes. They are standard web applications, built and QA-tested for the tablet and kiosk browsers your floor already uses. Connectivity requirements are part of the design conversation for each tool.
What do we show an ISO 9001 or customer auditor?
The workflow's own records — NCRs, dispositions, CAPA verification — live in a database you control and export on demand. On top of that, the platform's append-only audit trail and recorded human review demonstrate controlled change for the tool itself, which auditors increasingly ask about.
Who builds these — corporate IT or the plant?
Usually the plant describes and corporate governs. A quality engineer or ops leader writes the workflow in plain language; plant or corporate IT reviews the plan, controls access and owns deployment. Conductor gives IT one screen across every plant's tools.
Can this run on-prem for plants with restricted networks?
Yes — on-prem deployment is available under separate terms, alongside your own cloud account or private VPC. Plants with strict network segmentation can keep operational tools inside their boundary.