The Outdated Status Quo and Growing Complexity
The manufacturing industry, long hailed as the backbone of the global economy, stands at a crucial inflection point. Despite its immense importance, this sector has been noticeably slow in adopting modern software solutions. Manufacturing has always been thought of as a simple “make and ship” operation. However, it is a complex, interdependent system where even a minor disruption in one area can reverberate across the entire value chain. The moment a supplier changes a delivery schedule, or a new iteration of a product line goes live, the entire operation becomes outdated.
Today, more than 600,000 manufacturing companies worldwide continue to rely on static tools and siloed legacy systems to coordinate their increasingly complex operations—imagine Gantt charts scribbled on whiteboards in one department and countless spreadsheets tracking inventory in another, all while white board-based VSM diagrams hang on factory walls, quickly falling out of date.
This is precisely the gap that Threaded seeks to fill. By transforming static diagrams into a dynamic, actionable platform grounded in best practices, Threaded equips manufacturers with real-time insights, advanced data integration, and seamless collaboration—redefining how teams across design, procurement, engineering, and quality control align.
Uniting Operational Expertise with Data-driven Innovation
Threaded is the brainchild of two co-founders who came together from different backgrounds yet shared the same conviction that modern manufacturing is overdue for a digital renaissance. Having launched cutting-edge products at Tesla, Carbon, and Rivian, Braden Ball lived the friction of outdated tools. Even at these innovative companies, Braden was struck by how often critical processes were still managed with pen and paper, manual spreadsheets, and static diagrams. This reliance on traditional methods caused persistent misalignments across teams and hindered the ability to adapt quickly in a fast-moving sector.
Data and infrastructure specialist Ryan Mason approached the problem from a different angle. His experiences at Square and other data-centric startups taught him that most organizational challenges boil down to how effectively data flows through a system. Observing the “invisible friction” that arises when cross-functional teams lack real-time visibility, Ryan realized that the root problem in manufacturing was similar: disjointed information, no single source of truth, and limited capacity to predict or prevent disruptions.
By uniting Braden’s manufacturing expertise with Ryan’s data-driven perspective, the team founded Threaded in late 2023, with a shared goal to provide a next-gen platform that marries the principles of lean manufacturing with the dynamic capabilities of modern software.
Transforming Static Value into Dynamic Real-time Collaboration
In the past, countless attempts to modernize Value Stream Mapping (VSM) and manufacturing workflows have amounted to little more than the same static processes and data silos while focusing on surface-level improvements rather than rethinking how teams align and respond to change. To move beyond this, Threaded decided to focus on evolving a cornerstone of lean manufacturing practices—VSM, which offers a macro-level snapshot of all the steps required to bring a product from raw materials to finished goods. For decades, this approach has helped manufacturers identify hidden bottlenecks and opportunities for improvement. Yet, as production lines have grown more sophisticated, traditional VSM methods have struggled to keep pace. A paper-based or spreadsheet-driven map quickly becomes obsolete when a supplier misses a shipment or a design team modifies a component.
Over time, these fragmented methods incur massive hidden costs. Without unified, real-time visibility, teams unintentionally duplicate efforts and chase non-critical issues, while genuine bottlenecks go unnoticed. In a world that rewards speed and agility, such inefficiencies can be devastating—leading to project delays, unplanned downtime, and recurring quality lapses.
Threaded reinvents VSM as an interactive, always-current system of records where every node (or step) within the value stream can integrate the latest data. Instead of static symbols and numbers, users see real-time cycle times, inventory levels, and performance metrics. Teams can embed photos or videos of production stations and add comments directly within the map to clarify issues or outline potential fixes. Rather than waiting for a monthly review to update diagrams, Threaded allows everyone, from operators on the shop floor to executive leadership to access a living, evolving representation of the system at any moment.
This concept of continuous collaboration reflects the team’s approach to Continuous Improvement (CI). They recognize that manufacturing is never truly “finished,” and even small changes in materials, product designs, or customer requirements can create domino effects across the entire production line. By capturing and visualizing those shifts in real time, Threaded transforms static VSM from a snapshot exercise into a live, collaborative system where the platform acts as a living, single source of truth that empowers operators to spot inefficiencies in emerging bottlenecks and empowers leaders to allocate resources strategically to stay ahead of potential problems, instead of reacting after they cascade into bigger issues. As adoption grows and Threaded continues to leverage data-driven insights and intelligent automation, its platform is evolving into a more comprehensive go-to solution for modern manufacturing.
An Essential Infrastructure for the Space Economy
Threaded is pushing the boundaries of modern manufacturing at a time when innovation has never been more urgent. As the space economy continues to expand, the pressure to rapidly and reliably build hardware at scale intensifies. Late deliveries, quality hiccups, or scaling bottlenecks can derail entire missions. Space manufacturers need real-time insight into every step of their processes, so they can adapt and respond to changes or updated mission parameters with speed and precision. Furthermore, this agility is crucial not only for meeting near-term production goals but also for laying the foundation for a new generation of space architectures, where modular satellites, reusable launch vehicles, and orbital logistics demand ever-greater operational coordination.
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