# AI for manufacturing — five tasks we remove, and the limit we set > Quoting, tenders, service reports, customer audits, technical documentation: what an agent takes on in a manufacturing SME, what it never decides, and what it costs to do nothing. **Version HTML :** https://agence-intelligence-artificielle.eu/en/ai-manufacturing **Langue :** en-GB --- AI by industry # AI for manufacturing In a manufacturing SME, the task that costs the most is not on the shop floor. It is quoting : finding the comparable job, the reference price, the bill of materials, then filling in a template someone else has changed. Three to five days per enquiry, and a competitor who answers in one. [Request the survey](https://agence-intelligence-artificielle.eu/en/contact) - **5 tasks** documented below - **1 limit** no specification validated by the agent - **2 to 6 weeks** before the first system is open - **Drawings and prices** stay inside your perimeter The cost ## What this industry pays when nothing moves. Ranges, not promises. They come from tasks we meet in this industry and orders of magnitude we measure in the survey — yours may fall outside, in either direction. **Changing nothing** - Time to answer an enquiry : **3 to 5 days** - Enquiries left unanswered for lack of time : **1 in 4 to 1 in 6** - Finding a comparable job : **45 min to 2 h** - Service report written up : **the next day, or never** - Answer to a customer audit : **2 to 4 days of preparation** - Jobs lost to slowness : **5 to 10 per quarter** **The quoting system, opened** - Time to answer an enquiry : **4 h to 1 working day** - Enquiries left unanswered for lack of time : **fewer than 1 in 20** - Finding a comparable job : **under 5 minutes** - Service report written up : **same day, reviewed** - Answer to a customer audit : **half a day** - Jobs lost to slowness : **1 to 3 per quarter** Five tasks ## What we remove, and what we leave. Each task is described with what the agent takes on and what stays with a person. If the second column is empty, we have not understood the industry. 01 ### Pre-quote an enquiry **What the agent does** It reads the request and the drawing, finds comparable jobs in your quote archive, pre-fills the template and cites the quotes it draws on. **What stays with a person** The final price, the discount, the decision to bid or not. A wrong price sent fast costs more than a right price sent slowly. 02 ### Answer a tender **What the agent does** It extracts the requirements from the specification, sets them against your past answers and flags the ones that have never been dealt with. **What stays with a person** The commitment. Every requirement ticked ‘compliant’ is ticked by a person, because that person will have to deliver it. 03 ### Write up a service report **What the agent does** From the technician’s notes — dictated, photographed, typed in a hurry — it produces a clean report in your format, with parts replaced and time spent. **What stays with a person** The review, and the conclusion. What was observed belongs to the technician, not to the machine. 04 ### Prepare the answer to a customer audit **What the agent does** The questionnaire arrives with forty questions, thirty-five of which already have an answer somewhere. It finds them, assembles them, and marks the ones still open. **What stays with a person** The five that remain, and the signature. An audit commits your certification : nothing leaves without the quality manager. 05 ### Find a specification, a standard, a history **What the agent does** It answers ‘which surface treatment did we use on the 2022 batch’ by citing the file, instead of pulling three people off their work. **What stays with a person** The interpretation. It finds what was done; it does not say what should be done. What we do not do ## No technical specification is validated by an agent. That is the limit specific to this industry, and it is not negotiable. An agent finds, assembles, pre-fills and cites. It does not set a tolerance, choose a material or tick ‘compliant’ on a requirement. Those acts carry a responsibility that must stay identifiable — and the diagram below shows exactly where the machine stops. **The method, in one sentence** Ten systems, one survey, one system opened at a time — the one with the shortest payback. [Read the full method](https://agence-intelligence-artificielle.eu/en/#methode), or go back to the [AI agency](https://agence-intelligence-artificielle.eu/en/) page. The tools ## What we open it with, and why here. The choice of tool comes last, and it is reversible. But in this industry, three constraints keep coming back and steer the choice before we even start. **A document base on your premises, first** Drawings, quotes and technical sheets are covered by customer confidentiality clauses. Before any agent, we decide where the documents live — and ‘on your premises’ is the most frequent answer. **n8n or Make for the circuit** Manufacturing scenarios chain many short steps : read an email, extract, search, fill in, notify. A workflow tool can be read and corrected by your team, without us. **A model that cites its sources** In this industry, an answer without a file reference is worthless. The model is chosen and configured to show where every statement comes from. The objections ## What we hear in this industry, before we start. ### Our drawings are under NDA. Can an agent read them ? Yes, provided they never leave your perimeter. That is the first question of the workshop, before any use. Depending on the clauses, we install on your premises or in an isolated European hosting, and we write that choice into the quote. No document is used to train a model. ### Our quotes are in a shared folder, with no structure. Does it still work ? That is the most common case, and it is the first job : making what exists readable. An agent is only worth what it can read. One to three weeks of document groundwork before the first system opens, depending on the state of the folder. ### Will the estimator trust a pre-filled template ? Not at first, and rightly so. That is why every line cites the quote it comes from : he checks in one click instead of taking it on trust. After a few weeks, he only checks the deviations. ### And the ERP, the MRP ? We are not going to change everything. No. The agent reads what the ERP produces and fills in what it expects. It plugs in alongside, it replaces nothing. If your tool has no interface, we work from the exports it already knows how to produce. Where this industry concentrates ## The areas where we are called most for this. [**Manchester**AI agency in Manchester](https://agence-intelligence-artificielle.eu/en/ai-agency-manchester)[**London**AI agency in London](https://agence-intelligence-artificielle.eu/en/ai-agency-london)[**Birmingham**AI agency in Birmingham](https://agence-intelligence-artificielle.eu/en/ai-agency-birmingham) [**All locations**see the full map](https://agence-intelligence-artificielle.eu/en/locations) Related industries The same tasks, in neighbouring industries : [AI for transport](https://agence-intelligence-artificielle.eu/en/ai-transport), [AI for construction](https://agence-intelligence-artificielle.eu/en/ai-construction), [AI for logistics](https://agence-intelligence-artificielle.eu/en/ai-logistics). Method notes ## What we have written on this subject. [8 September 2026The EU AI Act: what it means if you sell into Europe](https://agence-intelligence-artificielle.eu/en/blog/eu-ai-act-what-it-means-if-you-sell-into-europe)[4 September 2026AI agent or plain automation: the £20,000 question](https://agence-intelligence-artificielle.eu/en/blog/ai-agent-or-plain-automation-the-20k-question)[2 September 2026Your document base, or why the agent answers beside the point](https://agence-intelligence-artificielle.eu/en/blog/why-your-agent-answers-beside-the-point) First call — fifteen minutes ## We will tell you which system to open first. Describe the task that costs you the most. We will tell you what is feasible, how long it takes and what it costs. If the answer is no, you will leave with the two reasons why. [Request the survey](https://agence-intelligence-artificielle.eu/en/contact) [Write to the agency](https://agence-intelligence-artificielle.eu/en/contact) --- ## Autres langues - fr-FR : https://agence-intelligence-artificielle.eu/ia-industrie.md - en-GB : https://agence-intelligence-artificielle.eu/en/ai-manufacturing.md - de-DE : https://agence-intelligence-artificielle.eu/de/ki-industrie.md - es-ES : https://agence-intelligence-artificielle.eu/es/ia-industria.md - it-IT : https://agence-intelligence-artificielle.eu/it/ai-industria.md - pt-PT : https://agence-intelligence-artificielle.eu/pt/ia-industria.md