Repetitive work stops needing someone.
Orders copied from email into the ERP, reports pieced together by hand every Friday, the same information typed into three places. We automate what is mechanical, so the team keeps the work that needs judgement.
Not everything is worth automating. Before we propose anything, we work out what it costs to build and to keep running, and if an automation isn’t worth it, we tell you before we charge you for it.
The criteria we use are set out in When to automate (and when not to).
- read the order email: automatic
- copy the customer and items into the ERP: automatic
- check the stock: automatic
- let the warehouse know: automatic
- sort out the order that doesn’t add up: your team
the mechanical work leaves the team’s hands. the exceptions stay with whoever can decide.
When the day starts
with copying data.
- “We spend the morning copying orders from email into the ERP.”
- “The Friday report takes half a day to put together.”
- “If the person who does this is off, nobody knows how it’s done.”
- “The mistakes always happen at the same step, the one we do by hand.”
Automation
with judgement.
Pick what pays off
We look at how long each task takes, how often it repeats and what a mistake costs. Sometimes the step shouldn’t exist at all, and then the work is in the process, not the automation.
Connect to what’s already there
An automation lives between systems: it reads from one and writes to another. When the systems don’t talk to each other yet, we start with integration.
Handle the exceptions
Every automation knows what to do when something doesn’t add up: it stops, tells whoever needs to decide and records what happened.
Keep it running
Systems change, and the automations keep up. We maintain what we build, and when the process changes, the automation changes with it.
We automate what’s mechanical. The judgement stays with your team.
Good automation doesn’t replace people: it takes away the work that never needed them.
Who it
makes sense for.
✓ it makes sense if
- the same task comes round every day or every week;
- the data already lives in one system and is copied by hand into another;
- the mistakes almost always come from the manual step;
- you want to know what it costs to run before deciding.
✗ it doesn’t if
- the task happens twice a year;
- the process still changes every week;
- you want everything automated, just because.
We’ve written
about this.
One conversation
is enough to start.
Tell us what is slowing your business down. You’ll get a straight answer, usually the same day.