On your floor
The first build starts at your gate, not in a meeting room.
The first build is where your operation gets described: its entities, its events and its exceptions. That description is found at the gate, the weighbridge and the packing floor, not in the process document. This page shows what standing there finds, and what the systems do about it. Every example here is built.
Why on site
The model of an operation is found at the checkpoint.
Every enterprise has a description of its process: a document, a flow chart, an audit manual. It describes the rule. An operation runs on the rule and on everything the rule did not foresee, and that second part lives in the heads of the people at the gate and in a group chat.
Software built from the document works on the day of the demonstration and fails in the first week, on the first truck that arrives without paperwork. So discovery is done in person. We follow one record from start to finish, collect every slip and register it passes through, and ask about the cases that do not follow the rule. Nobody can prompt their way to knowing that a farmer arrives at one in the morning with no contract, or that a packing floor weighs its offcuts and converts them back to metres.
What comes out is the model of your operation: the entities it tracks, the events that happen to them, and the exceptions. It is written down, it is yours, and every later system is built from it.
Rule and reality
| The rule | What the checkpoint showed | |
|---|---|---|
| Weighing | The truck is weighed on the weighbridge | Power producer: when the weighbridge is down, the truck is weighed at another weighbridge nearby and the weight is typed in. A typed weight has to be labelled as typed |
| Dispatch | Bales are scanned out when they leave | Textile house: a wrong, unknown or repeated scan is refused on the spot. A dispatch recorded in error can be undone for a limited time, and the undo is recorded |
| Enquiries | The customer sends a list of parts | Engineering group: it arrives as Excel, a PDF or a photographed slip, and a person has to confirm which item each line means |
| Terminals | Each operator records their own step | Power producer: operators share terminals, so each role signs in separately and an idle session signs itself out |
Field realities
A process is designed where it happens.
An operational system is not used at a desk by one careful person. It is used at a gate at one in the morning, on a shared computer beside a weighbridge, on a packing floor in the middle of a shift. If it does not fit those places, the record goes back to the slip and the group chat.
That is also an argument about ownership. A system you own has to be one your own people will keep using and keep improving. The people who run the operation are the people improving the system, so it has to be built where they stand.
Built examples
Eight places the record starts.
- At the weighbridgePower producer
Weights read from the weighbridge, or typed by hand and labelled as such.
The weighbridge computer opens the system in its browser and reads the weight from the indicator. No extra program is installed. If the reading is not available, the operator types the weight. Every weight is stored with its label, Weighbridge or Manual, so a typed figure is never mistaken for a measured one.
- At the gatePower producer
A reusable QR sticker for every vehicle.
Numbered stickers sit at the gate as stock. One goes on a vehicle at entry, scanned or typed, and comes off at exit. A sticker that is already on an open trip is refused. The gate operator confirms it was taken back before the trip can close.
- At each checkpointPower producer
A role for each step, and each step unlocks the next.
A trip passes six checkpoints. Gate operator, quality user, weighbridge operator, unloading supervisor: each role signs in and sees its own screens. Gross weight waits for the quality check. Tare waits for unloading. Terminals are shared between operators, so an idle session signs itself out.
- On the packing floorTextile house
QR stickers scanned with the device's own camera.
Stickers are printed from the browser, one per lump of fabric, and scanned in the browser with the camera of the device itself. No dedicated scanner is needed. Every scan screen also has a box for typing the number. At dispatch, a wrong, unknown or repeated scan is rejected on the spot, with a sound and a message.
- In the back officeWealth firm
Statements in many layouts: parsed, previewed, then committed.
Portfolio statements arrive as PDFs, spreadsheets and CSV files, in many layouts. Each layout has its own parser. The result is staged as a preview. Staff settle what did not match, then commit or discard. Nothing in a client's portfolio changes until they commit.
- At the sales deskEngineering group
A client's request, read from Excel, PDF or a photographed slip.
Customers ask for spare parts in whatever form they have. The file is uploaded and its lines are read out: description, quantity, unit. A person corrects them and confirms which item each line means. Only then is the quotation saved.
- In the inboxCement company
A purchase order that arrives by email becomes a record.
In the system built for the cement company, an email carrying a purchase order is forwarded to the system. The order is a PDF in an agreed layout. It is read by fixed rules, and the order appears in the system. Daily dispatch data comes from a spreadsheet that a person downloads from the ERP and uploads.
- In accountsEngineering group
Tally fed by file export.
Items, vendors, customers, purchase orders and goods receipts are exported as files in Tally's own format. The administrator downloads a file, imports it into Tally, and marks it as synced. A purchase order revised after that is flagged.
The edges
What connects, and how plainly we say it.
Most of the systems around an operation do not offer a clean connection. A file passed by a person, and recorded as such, is often the honest answer. This is what the systems built so far do.
| What the system does | What it does not do | |
|---|---|---|
| Weighbridge | Reads the weight the indicator puts out, with typed entry as the fallback and a label on every figure | Control the weighbridge or replace its software |
| Accounting | Exports files in Tally's format for a person to import | Keep a live link to Tally in either direction |
| ERP | Takes in emailed PDFs and uploaded spreadsheets | Connect directly to the ERP |
| Bank | Exports the payment file. A person uploads it and enters the references that come back | Reconcile the bank statement |
| Production | Records the counts a person types in | Capture output from machines |
Devices
A browser, on whatever is already there.
The staff systems are web applications that fit a phone, a tablet or a desktop. Nothing is installed on the weighbridge computer or the gate terminal. The engineering group's goods receipt screen is designed to be used on a tablet in the warehouse. The power producer's operators can sign in with a phone number and a one-time code.
Where a customer needs something of their own, that is built too: the wealth firm's clients have a customer app, built for iPhone, Android and the web.
Some paper stays, by design. The power producer's weighbridge still prints a receipt, and the yard still uses a chit for unloading readings. The system does not remove paper for the sake of it. It makes sure the record does not depend on the paper.
Connectivity
Offline mode.
Offline mode is available in the framework. It is opt-in. The examples on this page are used with a connection.
Get started
Every process in your operation, on one system.
Tell us how your operation runs today, and we will come back with what it takes to build it: the processes, the scope, and the timeline. Every system is scoped and built with you, so the first conversation is about your operation, not a demo.
coffee@jetbro.inWhatsApp +91 90999 62227