Use case
In every company that has grown over time, the knowledge sits in folders only two people know. The bottleneck is not searching - it is that nobody searches and asks a colleague instead.
Usually the process accepted fastest
The difference
A person does itThe system does it
How it runs today
How it would run with us
What it gets you
Where it does not fit
If the records contradict each other, the search makes that visible - it cannot resolve it. Sometimes that is the actual finding.
More specific
The process is sector-independent, the fit is not. These pages show the systems, the formats and the rules that actually apply there.
In mechanical engineering the question is almost never “where is the file” but “which revision was built”. An answer without a source is therefore worthless.
ViewAt a supplier, document search is a liability matter. What cannot be found within hours in an audit does not exist as far as the auditor is concerned.
ViewIn a law firm the permission boundary is part of professional conduct. A search that does not reproduce it exactly is not impractical, it is impermissible.
View3 to 5 weeks, depending on the state of the filing. Building it is usually the shorter half - the time goes into access, coordination and test cases.
Read access to the archives that are to be searched - network drive, mail archive, DMS. A permissions rule: who may see which records. The system adopts it, it does not work around it. A dozen typical everyday questions as touchstones. Nothing more is needed to start.
From verifiable criteria agreed before the build: On 50 prepared questions, at least 85 % come back with an answer and a correct source. Every answer names the document it came from - no source, no answer. Nobody sees records through the search that they could not open directly.
Pure enquiry runs independently, because it changes nothing. Anything that creates or sends a document is a different process.
If the records contradict each other, the search makes that visible - it cannot resolve it. Sometimes that is the actual finding.
In our experience particularly Mechanical engineering, Industrial suppliers, Law firms. The process itself is sector-independent, though - what matters is whether it repeats.
You tell us where your time goes. We put it in writing: what is worth automating, and roughly what that costs.
