AI workflow automation for manufacturing
We build and run AI workflows for manufacturing businesses, connecting purchase orders, invoices, export documents and production reports across the systems your team already uses.
The backlog
Start with the work people repeat by hand
A first diagnostic in a contract manufacturing business produced this backlog in two weeks. Twelve candidates, grouped by the desk that carries them.
Finance and compliance
- Purchase to pay matching
- Payables and receivables follow up
- The compliance calendar
Planning and commercial
- Customer purchase order to sales order
- Request for quotation to quotation
- Inventory replenishment triggers
Dispatch
- Export documentation packs
- Production against shipment plan
Operational follow up
- Shift production and downtime capture
- Inline quality checks with photo evidence
- Complaint to corrective action
- Tool and die shot count maintenance
These are candidates that a diagnostic ranked for a decision. They are not twelve delivered projects and we do not present them as outcomes. We would expect at least three of them to be wrong once the work is looked at closely, which is why the ranking is revised as the first agent is built.
Finance
Purchase orders, invoices and matching
The most repeated workflow in most factories, and the one where the exception costs more than the rule.
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The source documents
The purchase order in your ERP, the goods receipt raised at the gate, the supplier invoice that arrives as a document in a shared mailbox, and the amendment that exists only in a mail thread because somebody agreed it on the phone.
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The matching rules are yours
Quantity received against quantity billed, rate against the agreed rate, tax treatment, freight and packing terms, and the tolerance you already apply. We write your tolerances down rather than choosing sensible ones for you.
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A missing field stops the run
If a purchase order reference is absent, or a rate cannot be found, the agent stops and asks. It never substitutes a different source to keep going, because a match built on a substituted field is not a match, it is a guess with a tick against it.
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Exceptions go to a named person
A short queue, not an inbox: what the difference is, which rule it failed, and the person who can accept or reject it. Clean matches are prepared for posting and released under the same approval your team uses today.
Dispatch
Export documents and dispatch readiness
The pack is assembled by an agent and released by a person. Here is a pack with one line that does not agree.
Scroll sideways to read the table.
| document | checked against | state |
|---|---|---|
| commercial invoice | sales order, agreed rate, tax treatment | logged |
| packing list | carton count and gross weight from packing | logged |
| certificate of origin | validity for the destination on the ship date | logged |
| insurance declaration | declared value against the commercial invoice | escalated |
| buyer instruction sheet | the mail thread against the current order | awaiting approval |
| declared value differs from the invoice, pack held for the export desk | ||
The agent assembles the pack, checks every document against the source it should agree with, and names what does not. It does not decide that a mismatch is acceptable and it does not correct the number quietly. The export desk releases the pack, and the release is recorded against their name.
Production
Production reporting and inventory triggers
Reading the shop floor, comparing it with the plan, and telling the person who needs to know. Nothing more than that.
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Shift production and downtime capture
The entries your supervisors already make, on paper or in a sheet, read at the end of each shift and turned into the same report somebody currently types up the next morning. The exception is the interesting part: a downtime reason that does not match the code list goes back to the supervisor rather than into an average.
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Production against the shipment plan
Planned quantity against actual, by line and by order, with the gap raised while it is still recoverable rather than in the review after the shipment was missed.
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Inventory replenishment triggers
Consumption against reorder levels and lead times, producing a requisition for a person to approve. The requisition is prepared. The purchase decision stays with your buyer.
We do not control machines. No agent we build writes to a machine controller, changes a set point, or starts or stops equipment. It reads what was recorded, compares it with what was planned, and escalates to a person. Everything on the shop floor stays under exactly the control it is under today.
Evidence
Rules, approvals and evidence
Every action leaves a record that answers what was read, which rule was applied, what came out and who signed.
Scroll sideways to read the table.
| field | entry |
|---|---|
| Inputs | one supplier invoice, one purchase order, one goods receipt |
| Rule applied | quantity and rate match inside the agreed tolerance, freight billed separately is named |
| Outcome | entry prepared for posting, freight line held as a named difference |
| Approver | accounts payable lead, released 15:22 |
| Retained | the documents read, the rule version, the release |
Demonstration data. Not a client system.
Diagnostic
What the manufacturing diagnostic produces
Two weeks beside the people doing the work, and a backlog ranked on four things rather than on enthusiasm.
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Repeated hours
How much of the week the workflow actually consumes, counted with the people who spend it. A painful workflow that runs twice a quarter loses to a dull one that runs every morning.
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Exception frequency
What proportion of runs are not the standard case, and how expensive those are to resolve. A workflow that is ninety per cent exceptions is a workflow we would tell you not to automate yet.
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Integration readiness
Whether the systems involved can be reached at all, what your administrator can authorise, and whether the documents arrive in a form that can be read reliably. This is where an optimistic plan usually meets its first wall.
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Approval requirements
Which actions are irreversible, who signs them today, and whether that person can be named and available. If nobody can be named, the workflow is not ready, whatever the hours say.