Quoting from drawings
Engineering drawings analysed for material and labour, costed against your rates, quoted with a breakdown, and converted to a sales order on approval.
AI agents for manufacturing
In one line: the honest position is that fully autonomous production scheduling and closed-loop process control on safety-rated systems remain pilot-stage. Treat any vendor claim there with scrutiny. What works reliably today is the coordination layer — quoting, supplier chasing, NCR handling, planning support.
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Where mid-market manufacturers actually lose time
Not on the line. In the office: estimators reading drawings, planners chasing suppliers, quality engineers assembling NCR documentation, and the constant reconciliation between what the ERP says and what’s actually happening.
The distinction worth holding onto: a copilot answers when asked and saves minutes per query. An agent acts on triggers and removes an entire monitoring-and-response loop.
Workflows we automate
Supplier coordination
Delivery confirmations, shortfall detection and chasing, coordinated against production requirements.
Quality and NCR handling
Non-conformance captured at the point of detection, correlated with asset and process history so recurring defects surface as systemic problems.
Production planning support
Schedule impact of disruptions modelled and presented, with planners deciding rather than being informed after the fact.
Payables and three-way match
Invoices read, matched against PO and receipt, exceptions routed for review.
Traditional vs agent-augmented
| Today | With an agent | |
|---|---|---|
| Quote from drawing | 2–6 hours, queued | Same day |
| Supplier shortfall | Discovered at goods-in | Detected and chased ahead |
| NCR documentation | Manual assembly | Captured, correlated |
| Schedule disruption | Reacted to | Modelled, options presented |
| Invoice matching | Manual three-way | Automated with exception routing |
What we integrate with
- ERP/MRP: SAP, Epicor, Dynamics 365 Business Central, Pronto, Katana
- MES: major platforms with API access
- Historian: read-only where relevant
- CAD and documents: drawing extraction, PDF specification
- Finance: integrated through the ERP
- Microsoft-stack manufacturers are well served here — we build in Copilot Studio against your tenant where that’s the right home.
How we de-risk it
- No closed-loop control on safety-rated systems. Out of scope by design, and we’d challenge any vendor telling you otherwise.
- Planners decide. Schedule agents model and recommend; they don’t reschedule production autonomously.
- Margin floors enforced on every quote.
- Shadow mode against live production before authority is granted.
Related use cases
The same workflows, described by the job rather than the sector.
Frequently asked questions
Can it really quote from an engineering drawing?
For standard fabrication and common formats, reliably. Complex assemblies and non-standard notation get flagged rather than guessed at.
Will it reschedule production automatically?
No. It models disruption impact and presents ranked options. Autonomous rescheduling is not something we’d build today.
What about our MES?
Read and coordinate through its API. We don’t write to process control.
Are we too small for this?
Mid-market is where the coordination burden is heaviest relative to headcount. Quoting and payables usually pay back fastest.
Not sure this is your operation
Every sector page describes the workflows we’d expect to find. Yours will differ in ways that matter, and the audit is designed for exactly that — you get evidence about your own business rather than someone else’s.