Manufacturing Value Intelligence · SmarterChains

Welcome to
Zero Loss IQ™

The world's first manufacturing value creation benchmark. Understand where every dollar of value is being lost — and exactly what it takes to win it back, enterprise-wide.

100 Global Manufacturers

6 Industries · 7 Dimensions

$B+ EBITDA Opportunity Pools

CFO-Grade Loss Governance

4-minute walkthrough · Click Next to begin ↓

The Problem

Manufacturers are under pressure.
But the answers are unclear.

EBITDA is squeezed from every direction — yet most companies face the same four paralyzing challenges, and they compound each other.

📉

EBITDA Under Relentless Pressure

Commodity inflation, energy costs, labour scarcity, and demand volatility are compressing gross margins simultaneously. The old levers — pricing, volume, SKU rationalisation — are no longer enough.

⚠ Manufacturing COGS is 45–70% of revenue. A 1% improvement = hundreds of millions in recovered EBITDA.

🌀

Too Many Options. No Clear Priority.

Lean. Digital. Automation. AI pilots. Zero-based budgeting. Each competing for capital and leadership energy — with no shared financial language to compare their true value.

⚠ Most manufacturers run 5–15 concurrent improvement initiatives with no enterprise-level financial prioritisation framework.

🏢

Organisation Alignment Breaks Down

Line operators see losses differently than plant managers. VP Ops speaks Lean. CFO speaks basis points. Board speaks EBITDA multiples. No common currency means no shared urgency.

⚠ Enterprise-wide Zero Loss alignment requires a single financial language from shop floor to boardroom.

🔭

No External Benchmark — Flying Blind

Internal KPIs. Internal OEE targets. Internal improvement goals. But how do you know if your OpEx, Digital, and AI initiatives are truly connected to EBITDA enterprise-wide?

⚠ Before Zero Loss IQ™, no cross-company external manufacturing value creation benchmark existed — anywhere.

These four problems share a single root cause: the absence of a structured, external Zero Loss benchmark.

The Core Gap

The inner view vs
the outer reality.

Most manufacturers optimise against their own history. The real opportunity is only visible when you look outside — at what best-in-class actually looks like across the full industry.

📍 Internal Perspective

"We improved OEE by 3% this year — great progress."

"Our conversion cost trend is flat — stable performance."

"We don't know what best-in-class actually looks like."

IQ ~68–72

Industry Average Reality

VS

🏆 External Benchmark Truth

Best in Class runs IQ 85+ — the gap to leaders is 17+ IQ points.

Leaders deliver 35–45% lower conversion cost per unit vs laggards.

Zero Loss IQ™ quantifies the exact $ gap between you and the best.

IQ 85–89

Best in Class Leaders

100

Manufacturers benchmarked across 6 industries

15–25%

Recoverable EBITDA hidden in operations

100%

Score 0 on Enterprise Loss Governance (D7.2)

The IQ Framework

Seven dimensions.
One manufacturing score.

Zero Loss IQ™ is a weighted composite of seven rigorously defined dimensions — each capturing a distinct facet of manufacturing excellence. Scored 0–100. Benchmarked live against industry peers.

D1

Cost & Financial Efficiency20%

Gross margin % vs BIC benchmark · COGS % trend · Adjusted gross margin · Commodity cost pass-through

D2

Scale & Manufacturing Footprint10%

Revenue per plant · Revenue per SC employee · CapEx intensity · Network footprint score

D3

Manufacturing Intensity15%

Direct materials % of TMC · Direct labour % of COGS · Revenue per employee · Conversion cost per tonne

D4

Operational Leverage10%

Manufacturing overhead % vs benchmark · Depreciation % of COGS · Asset turnover · Fixed cost leverage 3yr

D5

Waste & Yield Excellence10%

Material waste proxy · ESG waste intensity (GRI 306) · SBTi/Scope 1 reporting quality · Packaging commitments

D6

OE & Change Culture15%

Named OE programme maturity · Savings delivery vs target · EBITDA-linked CI culture · Loss elimination velocity

D7

AI Decision Intelligence, Smart Ops & Loss Governance20%

AI/ML deployment maturity (predictive quality, maintenance, demand sensing) · Smart Ops automation · Digital twin at scale · Cross-plant enterprise AI loss governance (CFO-grade P&L) · OE-to-finance integration maturity

IQ Score Scale

Best in Class85–100

Challenger70–84

Follower55–69

Laggard0–54

Data Confidence Index

✓ CONFIRMED

Score 80–100

Published, audited, primary-source data. Use with full confidence in C-suite conversations.

~ ESTIMATED

Score 40–79

Requires calculation or proxy. Frame with methodology in commercial conversations.

⚠ MODELLED

Score 0–39

No public data. Set to industry average. Highest commercial priority — true score unknown.

⚡ Universal Gap — D7.2

0/100

Not one manufacturer across all 100 companies has an enterprise-level, CFO-grade manufacturing P&L by loss category. The single greatest untapped governance opportunity in global industry.

Industry Benchmarks

Who leads.
Who lags behind.

100 manufacturers across 6 industries. Every score backed by public data, proprietary benchmark imputation, and SmarterChains modelling. Leaders are pulling away — fast.

🍫 Confectionery

🍺 Beer

💊 Pharma

📦 Paper & Packaging

⚗️ Electronic Chemicals

#	Company	IQ Score	Tier

$0

The D7 Universal Gap. Not one manufacturer — across any industry, country, or size — has deployed a real-time, CFO-grade manufacturing P&L by loss category, benchmarked live against peers.

Discover Your Zero Loss IQ™

?

What is your
Zero Loss IQ™?

"In a world of Never Normal — the manufacturers who quantify the gap, benchmark against the best, and act with urgency are the ones who will win."

1

Current State
Know the gap

2

IQ Benchmark
See the rank

3

Zero Loss Journey
Close the gap

∞

North Star
EBITDA creation

$B+

EBITDA pools identified across 100 manufacturers

6 Industries

Confectionery · Beer · Beverages · Personal Care · Pharma · Dairy

Free

Discovery call to uncover your Zero Loss IQ™

smarterchains.com · Zero Loss IQ™ · Value Intelligence Platform