AI & Automation · Manufacturing & Food Processing

Manufacturing back-office automation, built for plants with fewer than 100 people.

I build AI automation for the back office of North Carolina manufacturers — quoting, production scheduling, compliance paperwork, and inventory reconciliation, wired into the ERP and spreadsheets your plant already runs. Software, not robots. Every engagement starts with a one-week, $4,500 operations audit — and if it doesn't surface savings worth more than its cost, you don't pay.

Charlotte, NC  ·  On-site across the state  ·  Audit first, always

The gap

The vendors assume an IT department. Your plant runs on a plant manager and a spreadsheet.

9 in 10of North Carolina's 8,000+ manufacturers run on fewer than 100 people

The enterprise tools assume an integration team, a data warehouse, and a six-month rollout. A 40-person plant has none of those — it has an ERP that's half-trusted, an estimator who's irreplaceable, and office work that grows faster than office headcount. That's the gap I build in.

And to be clear about what this is not: no robotics, no machine vision, no hardware on the floor. This is the office side of the plant — the quoting, the scheduling, the paperwork, the re-keying between systems. That's where small plants leak, and it's all software.

Where it leaks · What I build

Four leaks. Four builds. None of them robots.

Quote-to-cash automation, scheduling assistants wired into your ERP, paperwork agents that fill the compliance forms from data you already have, and inventory reconciliation that closes the floor-to-system gap. It's the same discipline I sell as workflow automation — scoped to the four places a small plant actually loses hours.

01 · The leak

Quoting lives in one estimator's head — when they're out, quotes wait

What I build · Quote-to-cash automation

An agent reads the incoming RFQ, pulls your past quotes and current material pricing, and drafts the quote in your estimator's own format — so approval takes minutes, not an evening. Your estimator stays the judge; the lookup and re-keying disappear. When the customer says yes, the same data flows into the order and the invoice instead of being typed three more times.

02 · The leak

Production scheduling happens on a whiteboard that's wrong by 10am

What I build · Scheduling wired into your ERP

Not new scheduling software — an assistant that reads open orders, inventory, and machine availability from the ERP you already run and drafts the day's schedule before the floor starts. When a rush order lands or a line goes down, it redraws the plan and shows exactly what slips. The whiteboard can stay; it just stops being the system of record.

03 · The leak

Food-safety and compliance paperwork eats hours that should run the line

What I build · Compliance-paperwork agents

Most of what a food-safety or quality form asks for already exists in your systems — lot numbers, timestamps, supplier certs. An agent pulls that data, fills the forms, flags what's genuinely missing, and keeps the binder current — shaped to your compliance requirements. The hours go back to running the line, and the day-before-audit scramble goes away.

04 · The leak

What's on the floor never matches what the system says

What I build · Floor-to-system inventory reconciliation

A reconciliation agent compares what the floor reports — scans, pick sheets, end-of-shift counts — against what the system says, every day, and surfaces mismatches while they're still small. Instead of a physical count discovering the gap after it has already cost you an order, someone clears a short exception list with their morning coffee.

Why North Carolina

Based in Charlotte. On-site at your plant.

540K+North Carolinians work in manufacturing — the state's largest industrial sector is food processing

I'm in Charlotte, and North Carolina audits run on-site. I walk the floor, sit with the person who does the quoting, and watch where the re-keying happens — you can't find the real leak from a discovery call. What you get at the end of the week is a build roadmap ranked by ROI, not "AI strategy."

Manufacturing is one of three North Carolina industries I focus on — the others are construction & specialty trades and independent medical practices. The full picture lives on the North Carolina page.

Proof

In production today. Not a pilot.

For a mid-market reverse logistics-tech company, I built the MCP server and agent tooling their internal teams use every day — Python on Google Cloud, wired into live inventory and truckload workflows, supporting 50+ internal users.

For a multi-brand field-services group, I built 14 field and back-office applications — the finance automation alone recovered 18 hours of weekly team capacity.

Inventory workflows, quoting pipelines, back-office reconciliation — the same shape of problem your plant has. It's the size of the leak — not a promise.

Is this for you?

Built for plants with real volume — and no IT department.

A fit if you're…

  • A North Carolina manufacturer or food processor doing $3M–$50M
  • Running real order volume on spreadsheets, a whiteboard, and an ERP nobody fully trusts
  • A plant manager or owner who can name the bottleneck but has nobody to build the fix
  • More orders than office headcount — and no room to hire

Skip it if…

  • You want robotics, machine vision, or plant-floor hardware — that's not what I build
  • You already have an internal software team solving this
  • You want a tool recommendation, not a look at your actual process
  • You need a vendor of record for a 200-page RFP — I'm one engineer, on purpose
Owner questions

The questions plant owners actually ask.

What does manufacturing back-office automation cost?

Every engagement starts with a $4,500 operations audit — fixed price, one week, and if it doesn't surface savings worth more than its cost, you don't pay. Build sprints are fixed-scope from $45,000, and the audit fee is credited toward your first build. Ongoing work runs from $8,500 a month, month to month.

Will it talk to our ERP?

Yes. I build on top of what you already run — ERP, accounting, even the spreadsheet workflows — through their APIs, databases, or exports. Nothing gets ripped out, and your team keeps working in the tools they know.

We're not a technical shop. Who runs this after you leave?

Your team does — that's the design constraint. Everything ships with documentation and training, you own all the code and infrastructure, and support is available without being mandatory. If a system needs a full-time engineer to babysit it, I built the wrong system.

Is this robotics or machine vision?

No. I build software for the office side of the plant — quoting, scheduling, compliance paperwork, inventory records. If you need hardware on the floor, I'm the wrong hire; if the paperwork around the floor is the bottleneck, that's exactly what I build.

Do you come to the plant?

Yes. I'm based in Charlotte and run North Carolina audits on-site — walking the floor and sitting with the office staff is usually where the biggest leak shows up. Remote works too, but a plant is easier to read in person.

Your back office is leaking hours. In one week, I'll show you exactly where.

The operations audit: one week, $4,500, fixed. I walk your floor, sit with your office team, and hand you a roadmap ranked by ROI. The fee is credited toward your first build — and if the audit doesn't surface savings worth more than its cost, you don't pay.

Or read how the operations audit works →

See everything I build for North Carolina →

Executive Briefing

Book a session with Nick

Systems in production at Registix, Bank of America, Cotton Holdings.

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