08 Three tasks measured, your programs inventoried and every improvement with its price.
It is a fixed-scope study of three tasks agreed with you, following a written method that makes every figure auditable.
It delivers four outputs that are reused afterwards: the inventory of your programs with each connection route tested, the baseline with its measurement method, the improvements ranked by their return and a proposal with a fixed price for each part.
Scope and measurement conditions
A measurement is only useful if it can be repeated. That is why each task is defined in writing before we start, so that two people measuring it would arrive at the same result.
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01 Unit of work
Each task is expressed as a countable unit: an order entered, a price list loaded, a project quoted, a report sent. Every indicator refers to that unit.
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02 Start and end events
We set what marks the start and the end of each unit, for example the arrival of the email and the creation of the order in the ERP. This separates touch time, the time actually spent working, from elapsed time, which includes the waiting between steps.
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03 Measurement sources
Observation of real cases is cross-checked against what your programs already record: entry and creation dates, change histories, exports and mailbox counts. Every figure comes from measured cases.
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04 Read-only access
We read only the agreed sources, through exports or with a read-only user, so that configuration, data and workflows remain untouched. The processing of the data is governed by a data processing agreement under Article 28 of the GDPR.
Software inventory and connection routes
Each program involved in the three tasks, or that holds their data, is documented in its own sheet. Together, the sheets form the map on which the system is later designed.
- Function and users: what it is used for, which roles use it and at which step of each task it comes in.
- Data: which entities it holds, such as customers, items, prices, projects or hours, and which of them are duplicated in other programs.
- Deployment and version: installed on your computers, on your own server or in the cloud, with its exact version, since the version determines which interfaces it exposes.
- Connection route: documented API, webhooks, scheduled export, read-only queries against its database or file exchange in formats such as IFC, BC3, DWG, CSV, PDF or Excel. Each route is recorded with how stable it is across updates to the program.
- Licence and terms: whether the integration module is included in your licence, what usage limits apply and whether the vendor or its reseller has to enable it.
- Verification: each route is tested against your installation with a real query or export. The vendor's documentation is a guide, but a connection is only signed off once it responds.
The baseline
It is the numerical snapshot of each task before any change. It records four measures, plus the sheet that allows them to be measured again in exactly the same way.
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01 Time per unit
Working time and elapsed time per unit, broken down by step, to show where the effort is concentrated and where work sits waiting.
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02 Re-keyed data
How many times the same piece of data is typed in again and between which programs it travels by hand: an item reference that goes from an email to a spreadsheet and from there to the ERP counts three times.
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03 Errors
At which step they occur, what type they are (transcription, price, unit or omission) and where they are detected, because correcting them in the office does not cost the same as once they have reached the site, the warehouse or the customer.
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04 Volumes
Units per week and per month, their split by inbound channel and the peaks. Volume turns time per unit into hours per month and decides which improvement pays off.
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05 Indicator definition sheet
Name, unit, formula, source, period and who records the data. Each indicator is defined so that, once the system is installed, its activity log can calculate it with the same method as the starting figure.
Ranked improvements and a fixed proposal
With the inventory and the baseline in front of us, the possible improvements are ranked by what they return and what they demand.
Ranking criteria
Hours the task takes each month, the product of volume and time per unit, and the share the improvement can free up; avoidable errors and the point where they are detected today; feasibility given the tested connection route; dependencies between improvements; and how easily the effect can be measured. First comes the one that moves a clear baseline indicator with the fewest dependencies.
Improvement sheet
What changes in the task, which programs it touches and through which route, at which step a person reviews, which baseline indicator should move and in which direction, and what remains to be verified before it is built.
The report
Around ten pages: the map of programs, the measured times with their indicator sheets, the improvements in order and the financial proposal: the fixed price of each part, so you can decide on them one by one, and the monthly fee.
Results and how they are used
- Priorities based on your own data: the order of the improvements comes from times, errors and volumes measured in your company.
- Decisions part by part: each improvement is approved separately, with its scope and its indicator known in advance.
- Known technical risk: licence and connection limits surface in the diagnostic, before anything is built.
- A stable reference: the baseline and its sheets are reused in every monthly report, which compares before and after with the same method.
- The starting point of the system: the inventory is the input for designing the architecture and the roadmap.
Shall we bring your company up to date?
We start with a 30-minute call to understand your case and explain what the diagnostic consists of and what it costs.
Request the diagnostic