for UK manufacturers
AI workflow assessment for UK manufacturers - cut the paperwork wrapped around every order.
Nothing leaves the yard until the paperwork behind it is finished, so that is where the 60 minutes goes - rebuilding the schedule, writing up non-conformances, raising purchase orders and chasing acknowledgements, getting job cards back off the floor, goods-in and stock paperwork, telling customers where their order has got to. Then a plan comes back written for the office rather than the boardroom: one fix per line, and the one that stops the most chasing at the top of it.
The paperwork that has to happen before anything leaves the yard.
The machines run and the product goes out. Behind that, somebody spends the week on paper: replanning because a material landed late, writing up a non-conformance and the corrective action behind it, raising purchase orders and then ringing round for the acknowledgements, retyping a job card that came back half-filled, booking a delivery in against the wrong line, and answering a customer who wants a date nobody has given them yet.
None of that makes the product any better, and all of it decides whether the order ships on the day you promised. A works order goes to the floor against a superseded drawing. A load stands on the yard while somebody goes through a folder for the material certificate that should have been attached to it. Friday afternoon disappears into reconciling what was made against what was booked, and the customer who was promised Thursday hears about it on Monday.
Nobody in your office needs another system to learn. The hour goes on the paperwork the week already contains, and the plan is ordered by what stops the most chasing - including the jobs where the honest answer is to leave things exactly as they are.
The paperwork behind every order - and what it is worth fixing.
There is no headline figure on this page, and the hours on our sample findings sheet are an illustrative shape rather than a forecast for your operation. What you make sets the load - a jobbing shop quoting bespoke work carries different paperwork to a line running the same part every month for a handful of repeat customers. The drains are consistent across the manufacturers we assess: scheduling and works orders, quality records and non-conformances, purchase orders and supplier chasing, goods-in and stock paperwork, and keeping customers told about their order.
An average would tell you nothing about your own paperwork, so the session does not use one. We follow a single order from enquiry to despatch, mark what a person has to touch at each step, and find out who picks it up when something goes wrong; the report then ranks whatever that walk turned up.
Run your own numbers in the admin cost calculator, or read the full breakdown in the admin drain hiding in UK small businesses.
More on that in the CRM and workflow gaps that cost UK service businesses.
The assessment is £799 - and every hour it finds was counted off one of your own orders.
Your six biggest time sinks - and what we do about each one.
We map your whole operation in the 60-minute session, then work backwards to the drains worth fixing first. Here is how that lands on the specific admin manufacturers feel.
Production scheduling
Next week's plan, rebuilt on Monday morning because a material landed late and a rush order came in over the weekend. We follow a fortnight of your schedule and pick apart which changes were genuine decisions and which were only information arriving too late to act on. What runs when is still yours to call.
Quality records and non-conformances
The non-conformance raised on the floor, the write-up, the corrective action, and the record that has to be produced when a customer or an auditor asks for it. We read through your last few and mark how much of each write-up is description rather than decision. Drafting can cover the description part. Signing anything off stays with your quality manager.
Purchase orders and supplier chasing
Raising the order, chasing the acknowledgement, then chasing the date again when it moves. We count the touches a single purchase order takes in your business and mark the ones that exist only because nobody was told something had changed.
Works orders and job cards
The job card that goes to the floor complete and comes back with the times missing, the operator's name missing, or both. We unpick where information drops out between the office and the shop floor, and where a first-pass record can be built from what your team already writes down at the machine.
Goods-in and stock paperwork
Delivery notes booked against the wrong line, a short delivery nobody spots until the job needs the material, and a stock figure the office quietly stopped trusting. We take one week of goods-in and work backwards to the point where the record and the shelf stopped agreeing.
Order acknowledgements and delivery updates
The acknowledgement that should go out the day an order lands, and the customer who rings on Thursday because it never did. We break the customer-update work into the parts a system can draft from your own order data and the parts that need somebody who knows whether the date is real. Promising a date is not a system's job.
What this is - and what it isn’t.
The assessment is a diagnostic and a plan. Within two working days of your call you get a passcode-protected report: the AI and automation opportunities we have found for your operation, named tools with costs and setup time, step-by-step recipes, a prompt library, an impact-versus-effort ranking, and ROI worked out on your real numbers. It is written in plain English so you can act on it - no technical background needed.
It is guidance, not us doing the work for you. If the report flags something worth building - a goods-in matching agent, say - the Custom AI Agent Build is a separate product from £949, scoped case by case. If you would rather implement the report’s quick wins yourself with someone beside you, the Implementation Kickstart (£349, 90 minutes) is there for that. The assessment always comes first.
The kind of result we publish.
Real clients, in their own words - the full story, what we found, and the measurable change in their week.
“Knowing something and doing something are completely different things.”
Questions manufacturers ask us.
We already run an ERP or MRP system. Does this replace it?
Is this about the shop floor or the office?
We are ISO certified. Can AI go near our quality records?
Is £799 worth it for a business our size?
One payment. A written plan,
a video walkthrough, and someone
checking in to make sure it happens.
A diagnostic session, personalised report, video walkthrough, and follow-up support. One payment, no ongoing costs.
Find out where your operation's office hours actually go.
Book a 60-minute diagnostic. Get a report built around your operation within two working days, a video walkthrough, and follow-up support. Money back if it doesn't show at least 5 hours a week worth reclaiming.
Book your assessment →