Thrive by Lean Technologies 
While data is precious to all businesses, handling and unleashing timely, useful insights from it creates an administrative burden on the operations. The Thrive software platform, the brainchild of Scott Sorheim, Founder and President of Lean Technologies was created in 2003 to solve shop floor issues with data and pivoted into a full-fledged solution for streamlining and simplifying data management.
Today, the extensive use of Thrive in the entire manufacturing operations can be attributed to its long list of features that are relevant to times and needs of the users. Thrive has been able to integrate communication and efficiency tools such as mobile-friendly operations, text based alerts and email notifications/escalations. Its reporting module and tools to analyze shop floor trends and real-time process data and the ability to easily share reports enable users to respond faster and make better decisions. Custom Data Tracking, another popular Thrive feature released in 2020, helps users be less reliant on spreadsheets and integrate more data into the platform.
Nearly 15 years ago, when this ‘out-of-the-box’ platform was built to allow manufacturing teams to manage data the ‘the lean way’; spending less time managing data and more time optimizing manufacturing processes and the business. Lean Technologies, under the vision of its manufacturing operations leaders, ensured their customers need not alter their processes as per the software features but instead, leverage it by configuring Thrive to fit their unique process needs. “A highly configurable and customizable software does not have to be complicated to deploy. We pride ourselves in making Thrive easy to deploy across an operation,” says Sorheim, outlining how Thrive users begin to experience value in a matter of days with full plant integration.
The Thrive platform includes a full Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS), Quality Management System, Safety Incident Management, Audit Tracking, Visual Productivity Goal Boards, Training Tracking, etc rolled up together. In short, Thrive reduces the time from data collection to decision making. For instance, a Continuous Improvement Manager implemented a request and tracking process utilizing Thrive project workflow that resulted in a 65% reduction in past due work order within 2 weeks. The Thrive workflow clearly communicated the department demand and timeline to the team which led to more on time completions. Additionally, Thrive provided visibility and communication channels to the requestors thus relieving the manager of the daily burden of responding to status update requests.
“We believe a great manufacturing operation starts with people and process. With the right team managing well designed processes, technology can help the organization achieve higher goals faster,” expresses Sorheim. Manufacturers are realizing the power in having a centralized platform that simplifies and streamlines process management – something that Thrive users have been enjoying for the past decade.
Along with Scott Sorheim, the leadership team at Lean Technologies also includes Vice Presidents Jamie Gyolai and Kale Sparling. Together, the team has been instrumental in elevating the role of Thrive in manufacturing operations. Drawing on his operations management and entrepreneurial experiences, Gyolai has been adding momentum to the Thrive flywheel by engaging a broader user base and deepening relationships with existing users and organizations. Sparling leaning on his R&D experience, Continuous Improvement and Plant Engineering Management has led the organization to a deeper integration of technology with systems, devices, and machines on the shop floor.
