Manufacturing automation usually starts in the office, not on the line
The machine is rarely the bottleneck we get asked about. It is the note that has to be typed before the machine's output exists in the system everyone else uses.
| Task | What is actually happening | Worth a number? |
|---|---|---|
| Goods in | A delivery note is retyped so stock matches what arrived. | Often |
| Works order updates | The shop floor tells the office, and the office tells the system. | Sometimes |
| Friday report | Someone rebuilds yesterday from four spreadsheets. | Often |
| Supplier paperwork | A new supplier is set up by email and a form that asks for the same VAT number twice. | Sometimes |
| Quality exceptions | A person has to decide. A form can collect the facts. It should not invent the decision. | Rarely the first build |
Put the Friday report or the goods-in typing into the hours calculator. If you have a list of them, the process ranker will sort the frequent, rule-based ones above the quality decision that still needs a person. Document-heavy ones often belong with document processing, with a check on the odd one.