Breakwater Operations, rung 03
The AI Operations Audit
Two to three weeks. We find where your operation loses hours and money, put real numbers on it, and specify what to build first. You get a document you can hand your CFO without translating it.
Why this is paid
A free audit has one possible conclusion. A paid one can conclude "not yet," and that conclusion is worth something.
It also filters. A company that won't pay for a diagnosis won't pay for the build, and finding that out in week one is better for both of us.
Mostly though, it's the whole argument. Everyone selling AI skips the diagnosis. Consultancies deliver strategy without a build. Vendors deliver a build without a diagnosis. The missing step is the one worth paying for.
How it runs
Ground truth
Time with the people doing the work, not just the people who bought the engagement. We look at the systems in use and the systems people work around, because the second list is usually where the hours are.
Quantify
Hours and dollars on every leak. This is what separates an audit from an opinion. Each finding carries an estimated annual cost, a confidence level, and the assumptions behind it.
Rank and specify
Score by value, effort, and risk. Specify what the top items would take to build: time, cost, dependencies, and who has to change what.
What you get
- A summary. What we found, what it's costing, what we'd do first. One page.
- Where the time goes, mapped by function, with hours attached.
- Findings. Each with what happens now, annual cost, what it could look like, confidence level, and effort to fix.
- Ranked opportunities, value against effort.
- What we'd build first, specified in enough detail to price.
- What we would not build, and why. This section is not optional and it's usually the most useful one.
- Assumptions and limits. What we couldn't see and what we'd need to confirm.
Plus a working session with your decision-makers to walk through it.
Three tiers
Scoped by how much of the operation we're looking at.
Compact
$7,500
One function or department. Good when you already know roughly where it hurts and want it quantified.
Most companies start here
Standard
$12,500
Core operations across functions. The full picture of where a 30 to 400 person business is losing time, and what the top three fixes are worth.
Comprehensive
$20,000
Whole operation, multiple sites or entities. For organizations with real complexity across locations or subsidiaries.
The fee credits toward the build. If you go on to an implementation engagement worth at least three times the audit fee, and start it within 90 days, the audit is free. You're not paying twice.
Our guarantee
If the audit doesn't identify opportunities worth at least three times the audit fee in annual savings, we refund it.
We can offer that because in an operation of this size, a real diagnosis clears the bar comfortably. If it ever stops clearing, that's something we need to know about how we're working.
Find out what it's actually worth.
Tell us what's slow. If an audit isn't the right next step for you, we'll say so and point you at the one that is.
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