See how M&M Manufacturing, a 45,000-square-foot aerospace and defense machine shop, used Harmoni to bring order to a chaotic shop floor, lock down program control across 25 CNC machines, and deliver three times the immediate ROI on labor automation alone.

Executive Summary

M&M Manufacturing, an aerospace and defense machining facility, struggled with inefficient shop floor operations, excessive firefighting, and unreliable process control. After implementing Harmoni’s factory orchestration platform, the company streamlined labor automation, tightened program control, and gained real-time visibility across all 25 CNC machines—generating 3x ROI on labor automation alone.

Introduction

M&M Manufacturing is a 45,000-square-foot aerospace and defense machine shop operating 25 CNC machines, including mills, five-axis machining centers, and turning equipment. With a workforce of 27+ machinists producing high-precision, tight-tolerance parts—many of them mirrored or symmetrical aerospace components—the stakes for accuracy and efficiency are exceptionally high. As the facility grew in volume and complexity, it became clear that their existing approach to managing shop floor operations was no longer sustainable.

The Problem

Before implementing Harmoni, M&M Manufacturing had tried virtually every method available to manage shop floor operations. As General Manager, Rocky Payton put it:

“How are we not running the shop? Maybe that would be a better question. We’ve tried everything from spreadsheets to whiteboards to magnets—at one point I joked that we were going to have helium balloons follow the travelers around.”

While M&M eventually migrated to using their ERP system to drive operations, critical gaps remained. The core issues fell into four main categories:

Excessive firefighting and chaos

Jobs were regularly expedited, parts were misplaced, and the management team spent more time chasing problems than preventing them. There was no clear, systematic way to ensure the right parts were being built in the right order at the right time.

Inefficient labor transactions

With MES stations scattered throughout the shop, machinists would finish a job, walk across the floor to clock out, stop to chat along the way, and eventually return to their machine—a process that, multiplied across 4,000–5,000 labor transactions per month, represented a significant drain on productivity.

Unreliable program control

With 27 machinists, each with their own preferences and work habits, unauthorized program modifications were commonplace. USB sticks with unofficial program variants circulated the shop floor, making it nearly impossible to guarantee that operators were running the correct, engineering-approved version of any given program. For a shop building aerospace components—where a left-hand and right-hand part can look identical—this created a serious scrap risk.

Limited shop floor visibility

Supervisors and program managers lacked real-time insight into what was happening across the facility. When a customer called to ask about job status, Program Manager Tony Gregory recalls:

“The customer would ask me where we were at on these parts. I’d say, ‘Hang on, let me go check.’ And then I would report back four hours later.”

The Solution

After evaluating multiple options at industry trade shows—including standalone machine monitoring and OEE solutions—M&M selected Harmoni for its comprehensive, integrated approach to factory orchestration. Unlike point solutions that only addressed one piece of the puzzle, Harmoni brought labor automation, process control, work queuing, and real-time visibility together in a single platform.

Implementation was smooth and fast. According to Tony Gregory, the team was up and running within a week, with full training completed in just a few days. From day one of installation, M&M was already clocking over 90% of direct labor transactions through the Harmoni devices—reaching 100% within a few months.

Labor Automation

Harmoni devices were installed directly at each machine, enabling machinists to clock in, clock out, switch jobs, and view work instructions without ever leaving their workstation. Machines now automatically count parts as they run, removing the need for manual counting. What once required a walk across the shop now takes 30 seconds at the terminal.

Process & Program Control

Every job printed in the shop carries an RFID sticker. When a machinist walks up to a machine and scans in, Harmoni automatically loads the correct, engineering-approved NC program directly from the server—eliminating the USB stick problem entirely. If a machinist makes any program changes, Harmoni’s revision control system immediately flags the engineering team for review.

“It gets rid of the USB sticks, and gets us back to running the program that we’re supposed to be running,” said Payton. “If they made any changes, it notifies my engineering team. You need to go review it. Did he have a valid point or not? We lock it down, we approve it, and that way the next time they run that part, we know exactly what they’re running.”

Revision control is also fully integrated with the ERP system. When a customer submits an engineering change, the updated revision is pushed directly to all Harmoni devices—eliminating the risk of machinists running outdated drawings or programs.

Work Queues and Daily Stand-Ups

Each morning, M&M’s production team holds a structured stand-up meeting using Harmoni’s work queue dashboards. Jobs are dragged and dropped onto specific resources, with the goal of maintaining at least 24 hours of queued work per operator. At their device, each machinist can see exactly what job is up next—no hunting, no guessing, no waiting for a supervisor to tell them what to do.

“I like more of a self-directed workforce,” said Payton. “They go to the device. They know the next job that’s up in front of them, and they just go grab that job.”

Real-Time Visibility

Monitors throughout the shop display live Harmoni dashboards, giving the entire team instant visibility into machine status, operator activity, and job progress. The portal’s Activity Screen provides a digital floor plan of the shop in real time—showing which machines are running, which are in setup, and which need attention.

Critically, Harmoni’s request functionality has also shifted accountability. When a machine isn’t running, operators can log the reason—whether it’s waiting on QC sign-off, missing tooling, or a program issue—giving management the data needed to remove bottlenecks faster and more systematically.

Results

3x ROI on labor automation alone

By eliminating the time lost to manual labor transactions, M&M generated a return of 3 times the cost of the Harmoni devices—purely from the labor automation component, before accounting for gains in process control, scrap reduction, or visibility.

“The ROI impact that we’ve seen from the labor automation aspect—and this is not taking into account any of the other things that Harmoni is offering—has been probably about 3 times what the device cost us. It’s definitely paying for itself, plus some.” — Rocky Payton, General Manager

Faster, more confident customer communications

Tony Gregory’s ability to respond to customer inquiries improved dramatically. What previously took four hours now takes minutes:

“Now I can go look and say, ‘This is where it’s at,’ and I’m confident in our data integrity.”

Reduced scrap risk

With program and process control locked down through Harmoni, the risk of machinists running the wrong program—or building the wrong-hand part—has been significantly reduced. Check sheets with embedded tolerances prompt operators to verify measurements at the machine, catching out-of-tolerance dimensions before they become scrapped parts.

Elimination of paper-based dead data

Work instructions, setup sheets, and check sheets are now live on the device. Revision changes are pushed instantly—removing the need to chase down paper travelers across jobs in WIP.

Conclusion

M&M Manufacturing’s journey with Harmoni illustrates what becomes possible when the right technology meets a culture that values systems, process discipline, and continuous improvement. By replacing fragmented, manual workflows with an integrated factory orchestration platform, M&M has transformed its shop floor from a reactive, firefighting environment into a structured, data-driven operation.

Looking ahead, M&M plans to expand its use of Harmoni’s check sheet functionality, integrating Bluetooth-enabled measurement devices to capture dimensional data in real time—further closing the loop between shop floor execution and quality documentation.

As Tony Gregory summed it up:

“It’s not just OEE. It’s work instructions, setup sheets, check sheets, RFID, Bluetooth. It is literally the foundation to take the next step for a shop like ours.”

For machine shops looking to reduce waste, improve throughput, and build the foundation of a digital factory, the experience at M&M Manufacturing makes a compelling case.