Chapter 05
Ongoing: AI systems drift. This is the part that keeps them honest.
Material prices, lead times, routings and drawing revisions move. A costing assistant is only useful while its controlled sources remain current.
Illustrative
A composite company, not a client. We model the inputs and the queue examples, then derive every total from the assumptions shown. A real audit measures each workflow in your operation.
- Profile
- Industrial manufacturer
- Revenue
- €22M
- People
- 90
- Sites
- 2
What the build changes
What the build changes
Before
After
Internal draft cycle for a qualified RFQ
Before: 9-day internal cycle
After: 2-day internal draft target
Qualified RFQs priced
Before: 18 qualified RFQs a month
After: capacity for 22 a month
Chasing a supplier for a price
Before: calls and inbox chasing
After: requests and reminders automated; non-responses surfaced
Finding a specification
Before: 40 minutes searching
After: source and revision shown in the draft
One row above models more output instead of less effort. The first process frees capacity of about 11 RFQs a month, and the modelled increase uses part of it. Nothing else on this page assumes more work arrives.
What we keep doing
Better models, on your say-so
We test candidate models against approved cases. We show you the model, version, region and error changes. We switch only after a named person approves, and there is a rollback path.
When the work changes
Material prices, routings, drawings, supplier terms and Quality approvals change. We version controlled sources and regression-test the affected costing and document workflows.
The next process
Once the first workflow holds, we agree and price the next process in the audited roadmap before work starts.
- Monthly
- A summary of weekly checks: source freshness, revision mismatches, estimator overrides, blocked approvals and failed handoffs. One page, with Quality or engineering decisions called out.
- Quarterly
- Sit down with the numbers, decide what is worth building next, and price it before anything starts.
Your own version of this
Two weeks, and the arithmetic is about your company.
The audit is where these composite numbers become yours: your processes, your hours, your build order. The first call is free. If it finds nothing worth building, you don't pay.