Mr. Knight's first step was to examine their business models, to understand where the problems lay. He soon found that they all had something in common - none of them were high-volume manufacturers, and all of them manufactured highly complex products. Their products were not manufactured in terms of hundreds per day, but in terms of a few per month, or even a few per year.

Mr. Knight explained it like this: "Technologies like ERP, SCM, CRM are well geared towards the needs of high-volume, low technology manufacture. For example, take a company that makes wiper motors for cars; to make the product may be a 5-minute robotic task. The main cost saving available is in keeping manufacturing equipment at maximum throughput, and balancing the level of inventory (raw materials) with orders. Hence manufacturing is not halted owing to lack of materials, and at the same time, excess materials are not stock piled & paid for without the corresponding sales orders being received. For problems like this, technologies like ERP/SCM/CRM are a great fit."

Mr. Knight continued: "However, in a low-volume, high technology, (highly complex) manufacturing scenario (such as the manufacture of satellites, aircraft, tanks, etc.), manufacturers face an entirely different problem set. Building the product can be a 3-9+ month manual task, requiring tens of thousands of man hours work by highly skilled engineers & technicians. Building the product now represents over 90% of the manufacturing cost. The main cost saving is therefore not so much in balancing inventory levels and matching order volume, but in helping engineers build the product. This is a completely different problem set to the normal focus of current management technologies like ERP, SCM & CRM."

To address these specific needs, Mr. Knight analyzed the business & engineering needs across several industries, in great detail. He then invented a new business model, specially focused on the manufacturing needs of Hi-Tech, low-volume, manufacturing. He then took that model & created a new product based on it. Companies from several industries have examined this product, and have estimated cost savings of 35% over and above their existing Enterprise Management Systems, plus major benefits in the areas of Engineering & Quality improvements, faster time to market, reduced risks, and improved prevention of loss. The new product can be integrated with existing enterprise management systems (i.e. for order processing etc.) or can be used stand-alone by a manufacturing group.