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Case study · Nifty Foods

Lumi: the operations platform that runs a food factory.

Most manufacturing businesses don't have a software problem. They have an information problem. Lumi is the custom system we built to change that inside one real factory, giving the team live manufacturing, planning and insight in one place.

A quick note on the name. Lumi is what Nifty Foods calls the custom system we built for them. It stands for Live Updates, Manufacturing and Insights, which is exactly what it gives the floor: one live view of the operation. It isn't an off-the-shelf product you can buy. Noti builds a different system for each business, shaped around how it actually runs, so yours wouldn't be a copy of Lumi. This is just an example of what that can look like.

Where it started

Lumi wasn't designed in a boardroom or by software consultants. It was built on the factory floor at Nifty Foods, a Sydney food manufacturer running 45+ staff and more than a million units a year, by the person responsible for keeping production moving every day. Every feature exists because it solved a real operational problem, not because it looked good on a roadmap.

Production plans live in one spreadsheet. Stock counts in another. Orders tracked somewhere else, quality records somewhere else again. The knowledge that keeps everything moving usually lives in the heads of a handful of experienced people.

The business should never depend on someone remembering.

Enter something once, and the platform takes over, connecting the data, running the calculations, watching the operation, spotting risks and putting the right information in front of the right person at the right time. Rather than replacing a single spreadsheet, Lumi became the operational layer across the entire business.

What Lumi does at Nifty Foods

It connects manufacturing, inventory, planning, quality, compliance and back-office administration into one platform. Day to day, it:

Builds production plans from current stock, customer orders, forecasts and manufacturing capacity, so the factory makes what's needed without overproducing.
Monitors inventory in real time and flags shortages before they hit production.
Tracks how fast each line is running using sensors on the machines, and flags when one drops below the rate it should be hitting, so a slow line gets caught during the shift instead of at the end of it.
Monitors coolrooms and refrigeration 24/7 and flags any unit drifting out of its safe temperature range, day or night, before stock or compliance is at risk.
Detects dispatch, shelf-life and expiry risks before product leaves the factory.
Captures quality, traceability and compliance records (HACCP, SQF, batch information) as part of everyday work, instead of reconstructing them at audit time.
Handles back-office administration: staff clock-in, shift calculations, invoicing and financial reporting, feeding straight into the accounting system (MYOB) instead of being re-keyed.
Generates daily and weekly operational reports automatically.
Gives managers a live view of what needs attention today, tomorrow and next week.

Every entry becomes useful everywhere else. A stock adjustment updates planning. A finished production run updates inventory. A quality check becomes part of the compliance record. Information flows automatically instead of being copied between disconnected systems.

ONE ENTRYStock count enteredLumiconnects itProduction plan updatesInventory adjustsShortfall check runsCompliance record keptDaily report reflects it

One entry, made once. Lumi does the rest.

More than storage

Lumi doesn't just hold information, it watches the operation. Before the first production meeting each morning, it has already checked hundreds of conditions across inventory, production schedules, demand, manufacturing constraints, shelf life and compliance. When something needs attention, the right person already knows about it. Instead of spending hours hunting for problems, the team starts each day knowing where to focus.

Lumi. This morning

Tue 1 Jul · 5:40am

Live
Checked hundreds of conditions overnight · 5 need attention
Cold room 2 drifting: 5.8°C
Above the 5.0°C limit for 12 minutes
Cold chain
Batch 4471 running behind
Make-up run needed before the 2pm dispatch
Production
Filler line 2 running 15% under rate
Sensor flagged the drop 25 minutes ago
Machine rate
3 orders short on stock
For tomorrow's dispatch, based on current counts
Planning
SQF pre-op record due
Line 2, by 9:00am
Compliance
42 quality checks passed
Logged overnight, nothing to action
All clear
All of this was ready before anyone walked in the door.
Illustration, not a live screen. Sample data.

Built around how Nifty actually runs

Generic software assumes every factory works the same way. They don't. Every operation has different products, production rules, quality requirements, equipment, customers and constraints. Because Lumi was built from inside the operation, it fits the way Nifty actually works rather than forcing the business to bend around the software. That meant fast adoption, almost no training, and a system that supports the floor instead of slowing it down.

Lean by design

Lumi runs on the low-cost and free tools the business already has, Google Workspace and Google Drive, plus lightweight cloud services (Cloudflare, Supabase, R2). It avoids expensive enterprise software entirely. Where paid subscriptions exist, they're being brought in-house one by one: container tracking and checkweigher software have already been rebuilt in-house, saving $2,179.13 a year plus a $3,000 software purchase, with a paid inspection app and third-party automation (Zapier) lined up to follow.

What changed

Some of this is already realised, some is in the pipeline. Labelled so, no rounding up.

$2,179.13/yr
Container tracking · saved

Rebuilt in-house instead of a paid tracking tool. Already realised.

$3,000 one-off
Checkweigher software · saved

Custom software reads the checkweigher directly (Modbus), instead of buying the vendor's package. Already realised.

Days ahead
Dispatch & shelf-life risk

Risks now flagged before product leaves, instead of discovered on the dock.

~$7,200/yr
Inspection app · in the pipeline

Lined up to be replaced by built-in product-release forms.

~$2,500/yr
Zapier · in the pipeline

Third-party automation to be brought in-house next.

The spreadsheets haven't been thrown out. They're now connected into one system and used in new ways, rather than sitting as disconnected islands. And operational knowledge that used to live in one person's head now lives in Lumi. All of it built on free and low-cost tools (Google Workspace, Google Drive, Cloudflare, Supabase, R2) instead of enterprise software.

I didn't build Lumi to sell it. I built it because I needed it to get through my own day, and every part of it had to earn its keep.Patrick Lemon, Noti

The idea behind it

Most software records what happened yesterday. Lumi's job is to help the team understand what needs attention today and what's likely to happen tomorrow, to act as the operational brain of the business.

Because the best operations aren't built on people remembering everything. They're built on systems that never forget.

Want a system built around how you actually run?

Tell me what is slowing you down. If Noti is not the right fit, I will say so.

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