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Product Scope and Future Directions
Table of Contents
Factorial focuses first on manufacturing planning, execution, and traceability for low-volume, high-complexity products. Some adjacent capabilities are intentionally left to specialized systems while the core manufacturing workflows continue to mature.
This page describes product boundaries and areas that Factorial has considered. It is not a roadmap or a commitment to deliver the ideas listed here.
Purchasing
Factorial does not currently aim to replace a complete purchasing system. Purchasing has deep requirements of its own, and partial support would create an unclear source of truth.
Organizations can instead connect Factorial to an existing purchasing system through integrations. This allows Factorial to use purchasing data in manufacturing workflows without owning the entire purchasing process.
Product Lifecycle Management
Factorial uses EBOM data but does not aim to replace product lifecycle management (PLM) or computer-aided design (CAD) software. Engineering teams should continue to manage design structures and engineering change control in their specialized systems, then synchronize the relevant information with Factorial.
See Parts and EBOMs for the current relationship between Factorial and PLM systems.
Ideas Under Consideration
Factorial has considered additional interfaces, including a mobile application focused on factory-floor execution and a conversational assistant built directly into the product. Neither is currently a committed product direction.
Factorial has also considered warning when WIP inventory is installed or consumed, possibly as an organization setting. Today, WIP inventory can be installed and consumed without a warning.
Factorial has also considered offering to add a 3D model uploaded in a redline to its part once the redline is applied, for redlines that correct the procedure rather than make a one-off change.
Factorial has also considered a rollout step for applying a redline that changes part requirements on a task that has already installed inventory against them. While the redline is drafted and reviewed, each such requirement would show a warning that applying the redline means deciding what happens to that inventory. On apply, the person applying it would choose, for each changed or removed requirement, which requirement its installs carry to, or that they stay on no requirement. Today, applying a redline carries each install to the copy of its requirement when the copy still accepts the installed part, and leaves the rest on no current requirement.
Factorial has also considered a converter that runs on a server inside the customer's network, for STEP assemblies past the 1.5 million entities a browser can convert. Today, such an assembly is exported as subassemblies or as GLB.