An apparel factory asked where AI would pay. The list was shorter than it expected
After four vendor demos in a month, the owner of a cut-and-sew factory wanted a straight answer. Fourteen ideas went in, two came out, and one of those needed no AI at all.
This shows the kind of work we do. It is not a client engagement, and the business in it is invented.
- 2use cases recommended, out of fourteen looked at
- 3 wksfrom the first floor visit to a written roadmap
- 1 sheetof AI rules the whole office can read over a coffee
Where it started
The problem
Each demo promised to automate something. None of the vendors had looked at how the cut room actually worked.
What she wanted was simple to ask and hard to answer. Which jobs here would pay back, and which would cost more than they save?
What changed
What we did
We spent two days on the floor and a week in their data: order intake, cutting plans, returns, and the inbox where wholesale buyers send their changes.
Most ideas didn't survive. Camera-based defect spotting on the sewing line needed lighting and hardware that would cost more than two years of the rejects it would catch. A chatbot for wholesale buyers would answer questions nobody was asking.
Two did. Buyers send order changes as free-text email and somebody re-keys every one, so an agent drafting those changes for approval would pay quickly. The other was marker making, where a planner lays pattern pieces on fabric. The waste there was measurable and their existing nesting software could attack it before any AI got involved.
We wrote the AI rules on one sheet as well: what data the agent may read, and who checks its work before anything leaves the building. The first build started the following month.
Built with
- NetSuite
- Gerber AccuMark
- Microsoft 365
- Power Automate
Services in this job
AI Consulting & Strategy
Where AI pays for itself, and where it won’t
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