Job traveller Route · 8 stations · 2 decisions, both yours

One job, eight stations, two places you can stop.

Not on this sheet
  • Replacing your ERP.
  • Building a technical team.
  • Writing prompts.
  • Running a project.

None of these four is asked of you at any station below.

The route

In a shop, a traveller is the sheet that follows a job from station to station and gets signed at each one. This is the traveller for your first agent.

Every station answers the same four things. What happens, who is in the room, what we need from you, and what you leave with.

Allward is a managed service. We build the agent, connect it to the systems you have now, run it and answer for it. Your part is to show us how the job is done and to approve what the agent prepares.

  1. Station01

    Your people
    The owner, or the manager who lives with the problem.
    Ours
    The person who would lead your engagement.
    Signed off by
    Nobody. It is a conversation.

    Have us in.

    We come to your place, or talk by phone first if that is easier. You show us the job that keeps getting dropped: the orders that reach engineering with something missing, the invoices nobody chases, the purchase orders that never get matched. We look at it where it happens and tell you plainly whether it is a job an agent should take on.

    We need from you
    About an hour, and the job in front of us. Nothing prepared.
    You leave with
    A plain answer. Yes, not yet, or no. If yes, the one job we would start with.

  2. Station02

    Your people
    The ones who do the job every day, and whoever receives their work.
    Ours
    The people who will build your agent.
    Signed off by
    The people who do the job.

    We learn the job as it is really done.

    We sit with the people who do it, with the documents in front of us. The order and its quote. The spreadsheet somebody keeps on the side. The inbox the answers arrive in. We write down each step, each handoff, and the things people check from memory because nobody ever wrote them down.

    We need from you
    Time with those people, and real examples of the documents they handle.
    You leave with
    A written account of the job as it is done today, read and corrected by the people who do it.

    The process chart says the order goes from sales to engineering. The person at the order desk knows it stops with her first, and why.

  3. Station03

    Your people
    Whoever has authority over the job, and the person who will approve the agent's work.
    Ours
    The person leading your engagement.
    Signed off by
    You and Allward, in writing.

    We write down the agent's job, and what it is allowed to do.

    One agent, one job, on one sheet. We set the technical limits: what the agent can read, what it can prepare and what it is able to change. You decide who approves its work, who is told when something is held back, and what it must never touch. At the start, anything that leaves your business waits for a named person.

    Job description and permissionsIllustration · invented names
    Agent
    Order intake
    The job
    Read every incoming order against its quote before engineering sees it. Hold back any order that doesn't match and ask the person who can fix it.
    May read
    Orders and quotes in the ERP. Order confirmations in the sales inbox.
    Set by Allward
    May prepare
    The engineering worksheet. A question to the sales rep.
    Set by Allward
    May change
    An order's status, to held back or ready for approval. Nothing else.
    Set by Allward
    May not
    Change a price, a quantity or a date. Send anything to a customer. Delete a record.
    Set by Allward
    Release to engineering
    Approved by D. Okafor, every order.
    Chosen by you
    Held orders go to
    M. Tran, sales.
    Chosen by you
    Pausing the agent
    From the console, at any time.
    Yours
    Acting without asking first
    Not at the start. Later, only for the steps you authorise.
    Yours to authorise

    Agreed. Signed for the customer and for Allward before anything is connected.

    Fig. 1 · The sheet you leave station 03 with. An illustration of how one is laid out; yours is written for your job. More on permissions and control.
    We need from you
    Your decisions. Who approves, who gets told, and where the agent stops.
    You leave with
    The sheet above, agreed in writing. It is what we build to and what we answer for.

  4. Station04

    Your people
    Whoever looks after your systems. Often the office manager or an outside IT provider.
    Ours
    The people who build and connect your agent.
    Signed off by
    Allward, against the sheet from station 03.

    We connect the systems the job needs. Only those.

    The agent is given its own access to the ERP, the spreadsheet and the mailbox named on the sheet, with the permissions written there and no others. Your ERP stays as it is. Your people keep working the way they do. This station can be short or it can take a while. It depends on the systems.

    We need from you
    Access for the agent, and a copy of your past records for the test at the next station.
    You leave with
    Written confirmation of what the agent can now read and change. It matches the sheet, line for line.

  5. Station05

    Your people
    The ones who do the job. They remember which past orders went wrong.
    Ours
    The people who built the agent, and the person leading your engagement.
    Signed off by
    You. See the decision below.

    We test it on what already happened.

    Before the agent touches live work, it works through your own past records as if they were arriving today. Then we sit down with your people and read the result against what really happened. You see what it would have caught. You also see what it would have missed, and what it would have held back for no reason.

    Allward is a new company taking on its first pilots. We have no wall of results to point at, so this test, on your records, is what we ask you to judge us on.

    We need from you
    Past records, and your people's memory of which ones went wrong.
    You leave with
    The test report, misses included. Nothing live has been touched.
    Test on past records · order intakeIllustration · invented figures

    240 past orders read by the agent, exactly as they were keyed. 21 of them are known to have reached engineering with something wrong.

    17
    would have been held back.9 finish left blank · 5 size different from the quote · 3 drawing not attached
    4
    would have been missed.3 where the quote itself was wrong, so the order and the quote agreed · 1 where a change was agreed by phone and never written down
    6
    good orders would have been held back for no reason.4 used the customer's own name for a finish · 2 had a second page the agent did not read

    Before going live. The customer finish names and the second page were fixed and the test was run again. The four misses stay missed. A check of the order against the quote cannot see an error that is in both, and we would rather say so here.

    Fig. 2 · A test report as it is designed to read. An illustration: the counts are invented and promise nothing about your records.
  6. Decision · yours

    Go live, or stop here.

    You have seen the agent's work on your own records, including what it got wrong. If that is not good enough, the route ends at this point and nothing has touched live work.

    • ContinueThe agent goes on to station 06 and starts on live work, with a person approving.
    • AgainWe fix what the test showed and run it again before you decide.
    • StopThe engagement ends here.

  7. Station06

    Your people
    The named approver, and the people who work beside the agent.
    Ours
    The people who built it, reading its work closely while it is new.
    Signed off by
    Your approver, one item at a time.

    It goes live, with a person approving.

    Order intakeIllustration

    Needs you. Ready for approval.

    Order 4431Matches quote Q-2304. Worksheet prepared for Engineering.

    Approver · D. Okafor

    Fig. 3 · An approval as it is designed to appear in the console. An illustration; these buttons do nothing.

    The agent starts on today's work. It reads, checks and prepares. The person named on the sheet approves each item before it goes any further, and nothing leaves your business without them. Your people get a console to see the work, approve it, give the agent an instruction in plain language, or pause it.

    We need from you
    Your approver's attention on each item, and a word to us whenever the agent is wrong.
    You leave with
    The job being done on live work, and a record of every step that anyone can read.

  8. Station07

    Your people
    Nobody has to be in a room. Your approver works from the console.
    Ours
    The people who run and monitor your agent.
    Signed off by
    Allward, every week, on the report.

    It runs. We watch it, fix it and improve it.

    From here the agent works on its own inside its job. An order arrives and it is read. An answer comes back and the order moves on. You can also ask it things: why an order was held, or what is waiting on engineering. We monitor it, repair it when one of your systems changes, and adjust it as the job changes. It stays inside the sheet from station 03 until you choose to widen it.

    Weekly report · illustration, not customer data

    Order intake, week of 9 November

    36
    orders came in.
    31
    matched their quotes and went to engineering with nothing missing.
    5
    were held back and corrected before engineering saw them.Longest wait for an answer: 1 h 38 min, order 4417
    36
    of 36 were approved by a person. None by the agent.
    Changed this week
    Questions about a held order now name the missing field in the subject line. M. Tran asked for it.
    For you to decide
    Two orders came in by phone with no written quote to check against. Tell us who should be asked when that happens.

    Reviewed. Prepared by your order intake agent. Read by Allward before it reached you.

    Fig. 4 · A first weekly report as it is designed to read. An illustration; each number would trace back to orders in the record.
    We need from you
    Approvals as they come up, and notice when the job itself changes: a new product line, a new person at the order desk.
    You leave with
    A weekly report, the full record behind it, and one job you no longer have to chase.
  9. Decision · yours

    Another job, or stay as you are.

    One agent doing one job is a complete arrangement. Nothing at station 07 depends on you taking a second one.

    • StayKeep one agent. Station 07 carries on.
    • WidenLet this agent do more of its job without asking first. Only the steps you authorise.
    • AddGive a second job to a second agent, at station 08.

  10. Station08

    Your people
    Whoever owns the next job.
    Ours
    The same people you already know.
    Signed off by
    You and Allward, on a new sheet.

    A second job, if there is one worth doing.

    A new agent gets its own job, its own sheet and its own test on past records. It travels the same route from station 02, with less to learn because we already know your systems and your people. The jobs we lead with are order intake, purchasing paperwork, receivables follow-up, quoting, scheduling and warranty claims.

    We need from you
    The next job that keeps getting dropped, and the people who do it.
    You leave with
    A second traveller. Same stations, same two decisions.

    Where the jobs sit in a businessThe six agents

Attached to the traveller

What you pay for.

Two lines. One is charged once, to get an agent built and working. The other is charged each month for every agent we manage.

We quote both after the visit, when we have seen the job.

Schedule of feesAs it appears in a proposal · illustration
LineChargedCoversAmount
1Setup feeOnceLearning the job. Writing the job description and permissions. Connecting your systems. The test on past records. The supervised launch. Stations 02 to 06Quoted after the visit
2Monthly feeEach month, per managed agentRunning the agent. Monitoring. Repairs when your systems change. Improvements as the job changes. The weekly report and the console. Station 07Quoted after the visit
What changes the monthly fee
It follows the number of agents we manage for you. Add an agent and a line is added. Remove an agent and its line comes off.
Pausing
You can pause an agent from the console at any time. What a pause does to the fee is written into your proposal, so you read it before you sign.
Not on this schedule
A new ERP, new staff, or software for your people to learn and maintain.
Fig. 5 · The two lines of a fee schedule. No amounts are shown because each job is quoted after we have seen it.
Back to station 01

The first station is at your place.

Have us in. Show us the job that keeps getting dropped, and we will tell you whether it belongs on a traveller.

Have us inWho controls whatThe jobs we take on

hello@allward.ai · Greater Toronto Area · we come to you