Small first phase. Prove it or stop.
Most shops have been burned by a software project that took a year and never got used. So phase one is deliberately small enough to prove value in weeks and cheap enough to walk away from.
Start with a call
Twenty minutes on the phone or a video chat. You walk us through how the work actually flows and where information goes missing. If we need to see the floor to be useful, we book that next. No charge either way.
Pick one bottleneck
We agree on a single measured problem with a number attached to it: hours per week, clock in / clock out time with job tracking, a vacation and call-in system, inventory systems, mobile workstation devices.
Build phase one
Two to six weeks, one cell or one workflow, fixed price. Built for the person who will actually use it — gloves, noise, and all.
Measure, then extend
If it moved the number, we extend it. If it didn't, you have a working tool and no long-term commitment. That call is yours.
Boring, self-hosted and yours
For a mid-size manufacturer the best architecture is usually the unglamorous one: the ERP as the spine, self-hosted services around it, and the browser as the universal client. Everything we build runs on your hardware unless you'd rather it didn't.
Why local AI matters here
If you hold ITAR or DFARS obligations — or you simply don't want your drawings and procedures going to a third party — cloud AI is a non-starter. Both assistants we've built run entirely on-network with no external calls, and both cite their sources so an inspector can check them. On a factory floor, confident nonsense costs real money.
Why the mix of disciplines matters more than code
The hardest problems in this work aren't technical. They're knowing which ERP tables lie, which floor workflows survive gloves and noise, and which answers have to cite their sources. Between us we've done the assembly, welding, quality and production leadership jobs these tools serve, run the continuous improvement and Lean Six Sigma projects that change them, and written the software that makes the change stick. A development shop can write the code; the combination is the part you can't hire off a contractor site.