Observed / RFQ Intake
Requests for quote arrive as forwarded emails, scanned PDFs, and half-filled spreadsheets. The good ones look exactly like the junk. Some get answered in an hour. Some are found three weeks later, dead.
AI Systems · Manufacturers & Industrial Distributors
The plant floor runs on signals. The front office runs on noise.
Andon Works builds AI systems for mid-market manufacturers and industrial distributors — bringing the discipline of the line to the commercial work that feeds it.
01 / The Condition
Everyone watches the line. Nobody watches the inbox.
Walk any well-run plant and you’ll see the discipline: takt boards, visual controls, a light that comes on the second something drifts. Then walk into the office where the orders actually come from.
Observed / Quoting
A quote goes out and starts aging in silence. No light comes on at day three, or day ten. Follow-up happens when someone remembers — and the ones remembered are rarely the biggest.
Observed / Order Status
“Where’s my order?” is a phone call, then an email, then someone walking to the floor to look. The answer exists. It lives in four systems and one person’s head.
None of this is a people problem. It’s a signals problem.
02 / The Name
What an andon is.
On a Toyota production line, every worker stands within reach of a cord. Pull it, and a light comes on — the andon. The line may stop. A team lead walks over. The problem gets fixed where it happened, before it travels downstream and gets expensive.
The andon works because of what it refuses to do. It doesn’t report everything. It doesn’t feed a dashboard nobody reads. It surfaces one thing — something is wrong, here, now — and the whole system is built to respond.
That’s the standard we hold our work to: signal over noise. Systems that know what matters, say so the moment it matters, and stay quiet the rest of the time.
03 / How We Work
Built like line equipment, not office software.
01
We start where the work is.
Before anything gets built, we sit with the people quoting, expediting, and answering the phone. The system has to fit the plant — not the other way around.
02
Wired into what you already run.
Your ERP, your inbox, your spreadsheets. We build into the systems you actually use. Nothing to migrate, nothing to rip out.
03
A person stays in the loop.
Our systems flag, draft, and prepare. Your people decide. Judgment stays with the ones who know the customer and the floor.
04
Built for keeps.
We build small, prove it on live work, and stand behind it in production. If it doesn't hold up on a Tuesday afternoon in October, it isn't done.
04 / The Cord
Pull the cord.
Thirty minutes on where your quotes, orders, and inboxes actually stand. No deck, no pitch. If we can’t help, we’ll say so and point you somewhere useful.