Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1547450
28 SMT007 MAGAZINE I NOVEMBER 2026 Why I Founded MetisLogic This company grew out of my experience managing the Messy Middle. I had sat through endless clear-to- build meetings, seen wrong parts end up on boards, and watched lines stop when gaps remained invis- ible until production. I watched teams lose hours reconciling material that differed from expectations. I had also seen jobs ship late or be rescued with overtime and weekend work after preproduction consumed nearly all the available lead time. Those experiences changed how I thought about manufacturing efficiency. Software cannot make a component arrive sooner than a supplier can ship it, and a factory cannot recover time already lost. When most of the lead time is spent determining whether a job is ready, production inherits the risk, and the customer pays for the uncertainty. That is why we built a connected workflow for the Messy Middle, not simply to digitize a spreadsheet, but to keep material, demand, changes, allocations, and actual usage connected to customer intent. With that structure, manufacturers can identify gaps earlier, communicate status confidently, and preserve the traceability needed to explain what was built. The same principle applies beyond job shops. OEMs have similar handoffs among teams. Departments are internal customers of one another, and information can disappear at those boundaries just as easily. The Messy Middle will never be free of change. Electronics manufacturing has too many parts, revi- sions, suppliers, and exceptions. The opportunity is to use a purpose-built tool to manage these changes within a single, connected workflow. When the preproduction workflow is connected, the company gets time back before the factory ever starts. The goal is not to eliminate human judgment. It is to make the facts and decisions visible so people can apply judgment quickly and consistently. That recov- ered time can be used where it creates more value: building the correct product, protecting quality, and delivering when the customer expects it. Ralph Richart is the founder and CEO of MetisLogic. Figure 4: Centralized data provides traceability.