For small and mid-sized manufacturers
We guide small and mid-sized manufacturers into AI at their own pace. We structure your data, build the tools you actually need, and connect AI to the systems you already run. You own all of it.
No pitch. You do not need to know what to ask for. That is what the call is for.
Hours saved / mo
Tasks automated
On-time delivery
Throughput
1,894 orders / wk
Where time goes
Weekly report generated automatically
No one touched a spreadsheet · just now
No platform to buy. No ERP to replace. Nothing that stops working if we stop talking.
You are not behind. This stalls for everybody.
Industry research puts nearly three quarters of mid-sized manufacturers still stuck testing AI, with almost none of it fully running. It stalls for the same three reasons every time, and not one of them is the AI.
Kaufman Rossin, 2026: 73% of mid-market manufacturers remain in the AI testing phase, with none fully deployed. Silo figures: Cherry Bekaert.
Your numbers live in five places
The ERP has half the story. Scheduling is a spreadsheet. Quotes are an Access file on a PC in the front office. Quality is on paper. Nobody has the full picture of a single job.
What it costs
Silo inefficiencies eat 20 to 30% of revenue
One spreadsheet, one person who gets it
There is a schedule_FINAL_v7.xlsx somewhere in your company, and exactly one person who understands it. When they are out, everyone guesses. When they retire, it is gone.
What it costs
Every vacation becomes a fire drill
You find out at month end
Job costing shows up three weeks after the job shipped. By the time you see the margin, you have already quoted the next one the same way.
What it costs
Decisions made 3 weeks too late, every month
What we build
The tools your business needs. Not the ones you were sold.
Five things. Most manufacturers start with one and add the next once it is running.
Where to start
Most people who call us know they are behind on AI and not much else. We find the one thing already costing you, fix it, and build from there.
In practice
Usually it is someone re-keying orders between systems, or a report that takes three days. We start there, because a win people can feel buys the room for everything after it.
Data AI can actually use
Most AI projects fail on data, not on AI. We connect the ERP, the spreadsheets, and the files on local PCs into something a tool can read.
In practice
In week one you get a map of where your data hides and where it dies. Customers have told us that map alone was worth the engagement, because it showed them which processes were actually broken.
MCP servers
The safe door between your systems and Claude, ChatGPT, or Copilot. Read only by default, scoped to each person, every request logged.
In practice
Someone asks which open jobs are past their promise date and already over quoted hours. The answer comes back with real job numbers and links to each record, so anyone can check it.
AI chatbots
Grounded in your own data and documents. Work instructions, spec sheets, customer history. It answers from your reality, not from the internet.
In practice
Inside sales asks what a customer ordered last time and what it shipped at. One answer in seconds, sourced from real records, with links back to them.
Live dashboards
Backlog, margin, WIP, on-time delivery. On a wall screen and on a phone, refreshing on their own. No per-seat fee to look at your own numbers.
In practice
One dashboard everyone shares, built from the ERP and the spreadsheets beside it. The Monday meeting starts with numbers nobody argues about.
Not sure which one you need? That is the most common reason people call.
What clients tell us
Two things we hear.
One client sat in on a manufacturing AI webinar to see how they compared to the rest of the field. They came away struck by how far ahead they already were.
Another told us what mattered was the speed, and that we worked alongside their team rather than around it, so things actually got tested and integrated instead of handed over.
Paraphrased from real client conversations. We have not put quotation marks around words we cannot quote exactly, and we will name these companies here as soon as they say yes.
From spreadsheets to one system
Right now, this lives in seventeen spreadsheets
We do not hand you another tool to babysit. We connect the spreadsheets, the ERP exports, and the files on local PCs, and turn them into one system that keeps itself current.
Try it. Click an Hours cell and type. Watch everything below stay current.
Your live system
Hours logged
59
Labor cost
$2,242
Orders done
60%
Weekly report ready · always current
You changed one cell. Everything downstream stayed current. That's what we build.
The work nobody was hired to do
The typing stops.
Compass watches the folders, the inbox, and the ERP. Orders, confirmations, and invoices get read, matched, and posted. Anything unclear goes to a person with the reason attached. Your experienced people go back to the work only they can do.
Compasswatches, matches, updates
The process
At your pace. And then it is yours.
A focused sprint, not a year of consulting. Fixed price, quoted before anything starts. When it is done you own it, and you decide whether there is a next one.
Map
Week 1We find every place your numbers live. The ERP, the spreadsheets, the Access files, the PCs on the floor. You get a map of where data hides and where it dies.
Connect
Weeks 2-4We pull it into one live view and automate the worst re-keying. Real improvements running in your business in weeks, not quarters.
Own it
DeliveredEverything is documented and runs in your accounts. Your team keeps the keys. We stay available, but you are not locked in.
Wherever you are starting from
You do not have to know what to ask for.
Most people who call us know they are behind on AI and not much else. That is a fine place to start. If you already know your system, go straight to it.
Honest fit
This is built for you if...
Good fit
- You run a US manufacturer doing roughly $20M to $200M a year
- You have an ERP, plus a wall of spreadsheets doing what the ERP cannot
- Job margins are invisible until weeks after the work ships
- Critical numbers live on one person's PC, in one person's head
- You want working systems in weeks, not a slide deck
Probably not the right fit if...
- You want to rip out and replace your ERP. We build on what you have.
- You have no systems or data at all yet
- Nobody can give us 2 to 3 hours to walk through how the business runs
This list exists because we only take engagements where we can genuinely help. If we're not the right fit, we'll tell you on the first call.
Questions
Common questions
Still have questions? Let's just talk through it.
Let's talk
Pick a time that works.
A short call, no pitch. We will tell you honestly what one view of your operation would take.