More capacity in the office. The routine work is carried, and your people keep the decisions.
Service
Managed. We build the agents, connect them, run them and keep improving them.
Unit
One job at a time, done inside the systems you already use.
Price
A setup fee, then a monthly fee for each job we run.
For
Owner-run businesses of 10 to 200 people, in Canada and the United States. Starting with custom manufacturers.
Allward takes on the administrative jobs your office is stretched to cover. An AI agent checks incoming orders, chases what's missing and prepares the paperwork, inside the systems you have, and asks a named person before anything goes out.
If you're about to post a job in purchasing, accounting or order administration, you have already found the workload and set money aside for it. That is the right moment to have us in.
We go through the job duty by duty with the person who does it. Some of it needs judgment, a relationship or a pair of hands, and stays with your people. The routine part, the checking, matching, chasing and record-keeping, is work an agent can carry every day.
Then we put the two costs side by side, using your figures: the position you were going to fill, and a setup fee plus a monthly fee for the part we take on. Sometimes the answer is still to hire. You'll know before you commit.
Order 4417 is a sectional door. The order intake agent's job is to make sure what was keyed matches what the customer agreed to, and to get it to engineering complete.
10:15Released. On the record.
AgreedQuote Q-2291
Size16 ft × 8 ft
WindowsOne row, clear
FinishCharcoal powder coat
KeyedOrder 4417
Size16 ft × 8 ftmatches
WindowsOne row, clearmatches
FinishCharcoal powder coatcorrected 9:42
Prepared by the agentEngineering worksheet · order 4417
8:03 · Agent to M. Tran, Sales
Order 4417 has no finish. Quote Q-2291 says charcoal powder coat. Which is right? I'm holding the order until I hear from you.
9:41 · M. Tran
Charcoal. I missed it when I keyed the order.
For approval · D. Okafor, Engineering
Order 4417, corrected, with its worksheet.
Approve and releaseSend back
Approved by D. Okafor · 10:15
Released to the floor. Nine entries kept in the record.
Keep scrolling to follow the morning
Fig. 1 · An illustration of an order intake agent at work. The order, the people and the times are invented. Select any step to see the morning at that moment.
Two ways it works
It gets on with the job. And it does what you ask.
On its own
An agent doesn't wait to be prompted. It works through its job as things happen, and stops when something needs a person.
A delivery is received. Checked against the purchase order.
An order arrives. Read against its quote.
An invoice passes 30 days. A follow-up is prepared.
Purchasing agentIllustration
YouOrder another 200 stainless steel brackets from our usual supplier.
Agent
Your last four orders for these went to the same supplier, on 30-day terms. I've prepared a purchase order for 200 at the last price you paid.
Needs you. Purchase orders go out only with your approval.
Fig. 2 · How agents are designed to take instructions: in plain language, inside the same permissions as everything else they do. Allward is entering its first pilots.
You can always tell what was done, and what needs you.
In progress. The agent is working on it.
Needs you. Something doesn't match, or it's waiting for a person's approval.
Done. Checked, and approved where approval is required.
Weekly report · illustration, not customer data
Order intake, week of 9 November
36orders came in.
31
matched their quotes and went to engineering with nothing missing.
5
had a gap. The agent held them back and asked the right person.3 finish left blank · 1 size different from the quote · 1 drawing not attached
5
of the 5 were corrected before engineering saw them.Longest wait for an answer: 1 h 38 min, order 4417
36
of 36 were approved and released by a person. None by the agent.
Prepared by your order intake agent. Reviewed by Allward before it reached you.
Fig. 3 · What a week of one agent's work looks like on your desk. Each number traces back to orders in the record.
Order intakeThursday, 10:20
Needs you · 2
4421Size on the order differs from the quoteAsked M. Tran at 9:58
4418Ready for approvalWaiting on D. Okafor since 9:42
In progress · 1
4422Reading against the quote
Done today · 9
all9 orders checked and approvedOpen the record to see each one
Held orders go toM. Tran ▾
This agent isRunning · Pause
Fig. 4 · The console, mid-morning. An illustration. What needs a person comes first.
We set the limits. You run the day.
Allward decides what an agent can reach and change. Inside that, you supervise it: approve its work, instruct it, pause it, and choose who it answers to.
Wherever work changes hands, there is a place to start.
Six of those places are drawn below, on the path a job takes through a manufacturer. Yours may be somewhere else: in accounting, in customer service, in finding the right engineering document. We look for a responsibility that is clearly defined, comes up every day, and is worth handing over.
Fig. 5 · An example: how a job moves through a manufacturing business, with six handoffs where we often start. We build agents around the handoffs that matter in yours.
Quoting
Order intake
Purchasing paperwork
Scheduling
Warranty claims
Receivables follow‑up
Not on the drawing? Show us the work. We will tell you plainly whether it suits an agent.The six, in detail
Fig. 6 · The mark on our name, where it comes from.
About the stripe on our name
It's called a witness mark.
When a fitter tightens a bolt that matters, they paint a line across the bolt and the part it holds. The line says three things: this was done, someone checked it, and nothing has moved since. If anything shifts, the line breaks, and anyone walking past can see it.
Paperwork has never had one. An order can sit wrong for a week and look exactly like one that's right. Our job is to put that line on the work that passes through your office.
We pick one job, prove we can do it on your own past records, and only then ask for more. You keep the systems you have.
We learn the job as it's really done.From the people who do it, with the documents in front of us.
We test it on what already happened.The agent works through your past records before it touches live work.
You seewhat it would have caught, and what it would have missed.
It runs with a person approving.Connected to the systems you have. Someone you name approves each item.
You decidehow far it goes from here.
More, or not.More on its own, a second job, another department. Or none of those.
Fig. 7 · How an engagement runs. The two diamonds are your decisions.
How you pay
A setup fee to build it. A monthly fee for each job we run.
We quote both after we've seen the job. A job may take one agent or several working together, and you aren't charged by the count. How it works, step by step
Straight answers
What owners ask us.
QDoes it run by itself, or do we tell it what to do?
A
Both. An agent works through its job on its own as orders, invoices and deliveries come in. You can also ask it a question or give it an instruction in plain language, and it acts within the permissions we've agreed.
QDo we have to change our systems?
A
No. The agent works with what you run now, including the older ERP, the spreadsheets and the inbox. You don't need anyone technical on staff.
QIs this about cutting staff?
A
No. Businesses come to us because the office is stretched: a position they would otherwise have to add, overtime, a backlog. The agent carries the routine part of a job. Your people supervise it and keep the work that needs judgment.
QWhat does it cost next to hiring?
A
It depends on the job, so we work it out with your figures before you commit: the position on one side, our setup fee and monthly fee plus your people's time on the other. We don't publish a number, because an honest one needs your volumes.
QWhat happens when it's wrong?
A
It will be, sometimes. That is why anything leaving your business waits for a named person at the start, why every step is recorded, and why fixing it is our job and not yours.
QHow do we know it works?
A
You see it tested on your own past records before it goes live. We are taking on our first customers now, a few at a time, so judge us on that test.
Have us in.
An hour, at your place or on a call. Show us the job that keeps getting dropped. We'll tell you plainly whether we can take it on.