AI for Manufacturing

An AI layer over the ERP you already have.

We built this inside a manufacturer, department by department, before we offered it to anyone else. Your ERP stays where it is and keeps doing what it is good at. We add the layer above it: bespoke apps for each team, AI that automates the manual work, and information that moves at the speed of the floor.

Talk to us See how it works
The problem

Your ERP should hold the operation together.

Most ERPs are a decent engine for manufacturing. What tends to go wrong is how much gets asked of them. Three things come up in nearly every conversation, usually all true at once.

Everything pushed into the ERP

The instinct is to build every process inside the ERP itself. That works until it doesn't. The more that goes in, the more you are held to what the system was designed to do, and the longer you wait on someone else to change it.

Clunkier the more you add

Every extra process inside the ERP brings more screens, more clicks, and more manual steps. The system gets heavier, people get slower, and work that should take a moment takes half a morning.

Built for the system, not the people

The screens don't match the job, so people work around them. Spreadsheets appear. Numbers get keyed in hours or days late, and the ERP ends up describing a version of yesterday that nobody quite trusts.

How we know

This was our solution before it was our product.

Before this was a service, it was our own operation. We ran a manufacturer on an ERP that had gradually been asked to do everything, and the more we put into it the heavier it became. Jobs that should have taken a moment took a morning, so people built their own workarounds and the numbers reached the system late. None of that was anyone's fault. It is what happens when a system built to hold the core is asked to run every corner of the business as well.

Our background is software and AI rather than ERP consulting, which turned out to matter more than anything else. The obvious move is to ask how the ERP says the work should be done, then bend the teams to fit it. We did the opposite. We sat with each department, wrote down how the work actually happens, ran it through our bespoke AI systems to find where the hours were going, and rebuilt from the biggest source of waste down. One department at a time.

Once it was working, we started comparing notes with other manufacturers and found they were wrestling with the same things we had just worked through. The requests for help arrived faster than we could handle them as favours, so Shipshape Manufacturing became a proper offer.

The approach

Your ERP stays.
We add the layer on top.

The ERP you've invested in remains the same. We build on the work that's already been done, keep the ERP doing the job it's good at, and add the layer above it that makes the whole thing quicker to use and far more accurate to read.

The ERP stays the core

We keep the ERP as a clean, standard core, and every app we build reads from it and writes back to it. That way the ERP reflects what is happening on the floor, live, rather than what someone typed in on Friday.

An app for every department

Procurement, sales, quality, R&D, the shop floor. Each team gets a tool shaped around its actual job, all of them AI led, automating the manual steps that used to eat the day. Chasing suppliers drops from most of an hour to a few clicks.

AI that compounds

The Company Brain gives the AI long-term memory and real context: vendor habits, escalation rules, decisions, every lesson the team has learned the hard way. It drafts, chases, and remembers. Month twelve beats month one, and month twenty-four beats both.

01

Map the work

We sit with each team and capture how they really operate, including the workarounds nobody admits to. That becomes a roadmap, ordered by where the manual effort and the money are.

02

Build around it

Apps and portals per department, synced with each other and directly with the ERP. AI is built into them and linked straight to the system, so nobody hunts through screens looking for a number again.

03

Own the code

The apps we build sit in your repository. Keep us on, or take development in house once the work is done. Your call, at any point.

Make the system work for the people, not the people work for the system.

The Company Brain

A memory that compounds.

Point a raw language model at an ERP and it guesses. The tables are enormous, the context that would make sense of them was never written down, and the model fills the gap with something plausible. That is the whole problem with AI on top of an ERP.

The Company Brain sits per department and holds what the tables never held: who the real contact is at each vendor, which supplier part-ships the moment it is under pressure, what was decided last time and why it worked. Written as code, not as an impression. Every answer shows the email or record it came from, with a confidence score attached, and it sharpens the more the team uses it.

Illustrative query

Company Brain, cited answer

June's late lines trace to two suppliers, and one of them part-ships whenever it is under pressure. The chase that landed last time went out ten days early, and the production plan absorbed the split without a stoppage.Order the split up front, chase at day five, and hold safety stock on the two exposed lines until week 40.

Purchase historySupplier emailsProduction planLessons log

Every claim opens its source.

The answer's path through connected company knowledge

Illustrative
OTIF by monthMargin by lineDowntime logBuyer notesShift handoverSupplier historyPart-shipmentsLead timesPrice changesDual-source decisionSafety stock changeNext peak planPart-ship lessonChangeover lesson
Performance People Suppliers Decisions Lessons

Memory, not guesswork

Vendor preferences, contacts, decisions, and lessons are logged as code with a full audit trail. The AI reads its own record instead of inferring something from a million-row table and hoping.

Built on what is already there

The Brain sits above the ERP and the apps rather than replacing either. Work already done becomes context it can read, so the investment already made starts pulling its weight instead of being written off.

Apps that look after themselves

Every app has a report a bug button and a request a change button. Either one wakes an agent: it pulls the logs, works in a sandbox, tests, then sends a person an approval snapshot before anything ships. A human signs off by default, and you dial that back as trust builds.

Every answer uses what the company already knows, and every approved outcome becomes new context.

What we build

Usable tools, built around your teams.

Six things we build most often. All of them talk to your ERP, and all of them are shaped around the team using them.

Custom CRM

Built the way your sales team already works, with every task in one place and a live link to the ERP.

Vendor portals

Suppliers book their own deliveries and print their own labels. Booking-in speeds up and every delivery lands in the ERP on its own.

Shop floor data capture

Operators post straight to the job, with status flowing both ways. Accurate profitability by job, on every job.

Quality assurance

QC checks and non-conformances logged through a fast interface, landing as clean data in the ERP rather than in a folder.

R&D and development

Every trial, formulation, and revision in one database, structured so the AI can actually read it later.

The Company Brain

Long-term memory across all of the above: vendor habits, escalation rules, decisions, lessons. It drafts, chases, and remembers.

What we deliver

Faster to use. Quicker to trust.

Figures from work already delivered, once the apps are live and the AI is handling the manual chasing.

32%

efficiency uplift across the business, measured once the apps were live across every department.

60%

of manual processes automated, from chasing and rekeying to the reports nobody had time to run.

Minutes

instead of most of an hour. Chasing a supplier is a few clicks now, and the AI does the chasing.

The admin is where it shows up day to day. Procurement used to spend its week on the phone and in a spreadsheet, chasing dates and retyping them into the ERP. The Company Brain does that now: it drafts the chase, knows which supplier needs a nudge at day five, and files the answer. The same person covers far more ground, and spends the time on suppliers and pricing instead of on data entry.

FAQ

Questions we hear most.

What is AI for manufacturing?

For us it means a layer over the ERP you already run. The ERP stays the core and keeps doing what it's good at, each department gets an app shaped around its real job, and the AI handles the chasing, drafting, and rekeying that used to eat the day.

Which department sees it first?

Whichever one is losing the most time. We map how each team really works, then order the roadmap by where the manual effort and the money are. In our own business that was procurement, where chasing a supplier took most of an hour and now takes a few clicks.

How quickly should we expect to see value?

We build one department at a time, so the first app is live and saving time long before the whole programme is finished. How quickly depends on how much of the work is already written down somewhere we can read, which is the first thing the mapping tells us.

Will this mean replacing our ERP?

No. The ERP you've invested in remains the same, and we keep it as a clean, standard core. What tends to go is what grew around it: the spreadsheets, the rekeying, and the processes that were pushed into the ERP and made it heavier. Those get replaced by apps built for the job.

How much disruption should we expect?

We work one department at a time, so the rest of the business carries on while the next app is being built. Each team helps shape its own tool before it goes live, which is where most of the disruption would otherwise sit. Nobody has to learn a system designed around someone else's job.

Is this a one-off build or something ongoing?

Either. The apps sit in your repository, so you can keep us on or take development in house once the work is done. It's your call, at any point. The part that rewards staying is the Company Brain: it sharpens the more the team uses it, so month twelve beats month one.

What is the right first step?

A conversation, then a mapping exercise. We sit with each team and capture how the work really happens, including the workarounds nobody admits to. That becomes a roadmap, ordered by where the manual effort and the money are, and you can decide what to build from there.

If you carry responsibility for output, margin, or delivery, you should be able to say what the layer saved. Talk to us for a straight read on where the ERP is holding your teams up, and what it would take to fix.

Next step

Sort the foundation once.
Everything after it gets easier.

Once the layer is in place, every improvement after that builds on the same foundation instead of fighting it. New processes, better reporting, more automation. Same ERP underneath, same core, no rip and replace.

Pick your most painful process. We'll put a working prototype in front of you in two days.

Talk to us
Emailhello@shipshapedata.com
Part ofShipshape Data, London