Identify

The 2-Week AI Opportunity Assessment

A structured, evidence-based way to find where AI will free up capacity across your engineering business, and exactly what it's worth. You get a costed, decision-ready plan in two weeks.

Book a Scoping CallHow it works
  • A clear process mapYour core operations laid out, with the friction points made visible.
  • A prioritised shortlistAI opportunities specific to your business, ranked by value.
  • A validated roadmapA phased plan shaped with your team, not handed to them.
  • A data-backed ROIA financial projection for every recommended initiative.

Why start here

Most AI projects fail before they deliver

The technology is rarely the problem. The approach is. Projects start tool-first, with no baseline to prove a return and no clear priorities. The assessment turns that around: understand your business first, quantify the return, then act.

Engineering-native

We speak engineering

Technical drawings, calculation sheets, specification compliance, supply chain and design workflows are familiar ground, so discovery moves faster and misses less.

We know where effort builds up

Checking, rework, coordination and the information handovers between disciplines.

We respect how you're governed

Professional standards, QA procedures and design liability shape what can and can't safely become an AI opportunity.

Evidence-based

Your whole business, not one corner of it

In an SME the bottlenecks rarely sit in one department, so we look across all three engines and go deep where the cost is greatest.

Specific and testable

Every opportunity is tied to observed tasks and measured against your own baseline, not generic industry benchmarks.

Actionable in two weeks

A costed, sequenced plan you can start on straight away, with the assumptions behind every figure set out.

The scope

Three engines, examined in real depth

Every engineering business runs on the same three engines. We map each one end to end, covering the tasks, tools, handovers and decision points where friction and rework creep in.

Acquisition

Winning work

Enquiries, bids, tenders, quotes and proposals. Where slow turnaround costs you jobs.

Delivery

Doing the work

Design, calculations, drawing checks, specification compliance and the handovers between disciplines.

Support

Running the business

Reporting, document control, QA procedures and the admin that keeps everything else moving.

We speak to leadership for the goals, KPIs and constraints, and to end users for the day-to-day reality and the workarounds. Enough to see how the work really happens, not just how it's documented.

The approach

Three stages, across two weeks

Interviews are scheduled around your team, so there's minimal disruption to live work.

Stage 01

Discovery

We learn how work actually gets done

What we do

  • Structured interviews with leadership on goals, KPIs, bottlenecks and the vision for improvement.
  • Structured interviews with end users on the day-to-day tasks, tools and points of friction.
  • Sessions of 30 to 45 minutes, held remotely and recorded with permission for accuracy.

What we need from you

  • Interviewees nominated from leadership and end users across the business.
  • A short introduction to those people. We'll draft it for you.
  • Around 30 to 45 minutes of each interviewee's time.
Stage 02

Mapping and Opportunities

We turn findings into a view you can challenge

What we do

  • An Operations Canvas with your Acquisition, Delivery and Support processes mapped and tagged for friction.
  • An AI Opportunity Matrix scoring every candidate by business impact against implementation effort.
  • A phased roadmap from quick wins to big swings, aligned with your core business goals.
  • Researched, vetted and costed solutions for each opportunity.
  • A validation workshop to test the findings against your internal context.

What we need from you

  • Key stakeholders available for a single 60 to 90 minute workshop.
  • Open, honest challenge on any opportunity. The roadmap is stronger for it.
  • Availability to clarify any process detail we've mapped.
Stage 03

Presentation and ROI

We present the findings and the numbers behind them

What we do

  • An executive presentation of the findings, prioritised opportunities, vetted solutions and the phased roadmap.
  • A costed deep dive into each opportunity, with recovered hours turned into savings, ROI and billable capacity where relevant.
  • Handover of the full deliverable pack.

What we need from you

  • Decision-makers present for the final presentation, around 60 minutes.
  • A few inputs for the ROI model: team size, time-on-task and salary bands.

The two-week timeline

  1. 01Kick-offDays 1-2Scoping call, stakeholder list and scheduling
  2. 02DiscoveryDays 3-5Leadership and end-user interviews
  3. 03AnalysisDays 6-8Canvas, matrix, solution research and ROI modelling
  4. 04ValidationDay 9Collaborative workshop with your team
  5. 05DeliveryDay 10Final presentation and handover

Inside the roadmap

Solutions with the numbers behind them

Anyone can list ideas. The value is in finding what actually works. Here's how a single opportunity is broken down.

The opportunity and solution

Opportunity

Manual first-pass checking of design drawings against project specifications. Recurring, time-consuming and a quality risk if a deviation is missed.

Proposed solution

An assisted checking step that flags likely specification deviations for an engineer to confirm. The engineer stays the decision-maker.

Why it ranks

High time sink, clear quality risk and low effort to implement. A quick win.

The numbers

Baseline

Measured from interviews and, where available, timesheets or salary bands. Not assumed.

Recovered time

An estimated range per engineer per week, shown with the assumptions behind it.

Cost and payback

One-off build and configuration plus any licences, set against the recovered cost to give an indicative payback period.

Illustrative example

Deliverables

Five deliverables, yours to keep

Operations Canvas

Your business mapped end to end, with time sinks and quality risks pinpointed.

AI Opportunity Matrix

Every opportunity scored by business impact against implementation effort.

Phased Roadmap

Quick wins to big swings, each paired with a researched, vetted solution.

ROI Model

Costing and payback for each initiative, modelled from your own team's numbers.

Final Presentation

An executive-ready report covering every opportunity: solution, cost and ROI.

Your commitment

A light lift. A few hours in total.

The heavy lifting is on us. Your team's time goes on short, scheduled sessions, and nobody gives more than a few hours in total.

A single point of contact to coordinate the engagement.

Interviewees nominated from leadership and end users.

Brief introductions so people know to expect us. We draft them for you.

Short sessions: 30-minute kick-off, 45-minute interviews, a 90-minute workshop and a 60-minute presentation.

Consent to record interviews, covered by our privacy notice.

A few operational inputs for the ROI model.

FAQ

About the assessment

The questions we get asked most before an assessment starts.

Do you look at one department or the whole business?

The whole business. In an engineering SME the bottlenecks rarely sit in one place, so we look across your three engines: Acquisition, Delivery and Support. Then we go deep wherever the time and quality cost is greatest.

The next step is a 30-minute scoping call

We'll agree where to focus, who we'll speak to and a start date, then lock in the two weeks.

Book a Scoping Call