AI Scheduling for Smart Production
Discover how Mariasteen and FlandersMake used 24Flow’s AI-driven scheduling to transform planning and visibility across 100 work centers.
Mariasteen, one of Flanders’ largest social enterprises, partnered with 24Flow to bring AI-powered scheduling and real-time visibility to its metalworking and assembly operations.
The goal: reduce replanning effort, improve resource allocation, and empower supervisors and operators with data-driven clarity across 100 work centers.
The result: faster decisions, less replanning, and smoother flow on the shop floor.
About Mariasteen
Founded in 1963, Mariasteen is a diversified production company specializing in metal and assembly, wood, green services, painting, and facility work.
As part of Groep Gidts, Mariasteen creates employment opportunities for people with disabilities while serving leading industrial and public organizations across Flanders.
With over 1,000 employees and sites in Hooglede-Gits, Roeselare, and Tielt, Mariasteen offers full-service coordination — from research & development and production to logistics and on-site support — combining economic impact with social responsibility.
Challenges
Before the introduction of 24Flow, Mariasteen had a number of challenges in production:
Complex scheduling
Thousands of unique products and variable order priorities made daily planning difficult.
Scattered data
Production information was spread across multiple systems and spreadsheets.
Reactive planning
Urgent orders disrupted schedules, forcing constant replanning.
Limited visibility
Supervisors lacked a real-time overview of work-in-progress and capacity.
Slow onboarding
Product diversity made it hard for new operators to learn processes quickly.
Solutions
To tackle these challenges, Mariasteen implemented 24Flow’s AI-based Shopfloor Scheduling Platform, built on Salesforce and integrated with SAP ERP and Syntegro workforce data.
- AI-driven scheduling – The system dynamically allocates resources to production orders based on priorities, constraints, and availability, ensuring optimal utilization across 100 work centers.
- Order release management – 24Flow digitized the order release process, allowing dynamic prioritization and reducing manual replanning.
- Digital work instructions – Operators receive clear, contextual, real-time instructions that enhance quality and reduce downtime.
- Real-time monitoring – Supervisors gain instant visibility into progress and bottlenecks, enabling faster decision-making and proactive adjustments.
- Integrated data layer – By consolidating scattered information from ERP and HR systems, 24Flow provides structured insights for better planning and continuous improvement.
Impact
The collaboration between Mariasteen, FlandersMake, and 24Flow transformed scheduling from a manual, reactive process into a digital, AI-driven flow control system.
- €200,000 Annual Savings: By streamlining planning processes, improving resource allocation, and reducing delays, Mariasteen forecasts significant cost savings.
- Time Optimization: Supervisors can reduce their daily planning time from 3 hours to just 30 minutes, enabling them to shift focus to higher-value tasks like problem-solving and process improvement.
- Efficiency gains – Improved utilization of work centers and faster reaction to changing priorities.
- Visibility – Real-time insights into production flow, enabling proactive management of bottlenecks.
- Employee empowerment – Operators and supervisors work with greater clarity, less stress, and higher engagement.
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ABOUT US
24Flow is a modular manufacturing platform that empowers make-to-order manufacturers to reduce lead times and increase visibility & traceability. Inspired by lean and QRM, 24Flow controls the flow of production orders which increases visibility and results in shorter lead times, improved delivery reliability and a reduction of work-in-progress and inventory.
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