Spreadsheets that disagree
The office sheet says 120 pieces are welded. The foreman’s sheet says 104. Somebody has to walk out to the floor and count, and by the time they are back, the numbers have changed again.
Technical Revolution Tactics
Software built around the way your business really works.
TRTactics builds management systems for factories and workshops. The system runs either on a computer in your own building or in the cloud, whichever suits you, and we look after it afterwards.
If you keep track of your work today with spreadsheets, paper forms and telephone calls, we replace that with one system that everyone in your office can open and trust. You do not need to know anything about computers to talk to us. We begin by listening to how your work is done.
What working with us looks like
Four steps, each one in your hands
We keep the way we work simple, so that you always know what is happening and what, if anything, we need from you.
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Listen
What happens. We come and sit with the people who do the work, the foreman, the office, the person who writes the reports, and we write down what the system has to answer for each of them.
What you do. Give us some of your people’s time, and show us the forms and sheets you use today.
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Build
What happens. You receive a test version early, filled with sample data, so you can see it working. You mark it up, and we change it until it matches your shop.
What you do. Try it, and tell us plainly what is wrong or missing. Nothing is too small to mention.
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Install
What happens. If you run the system in your own building, one installer puts it on your server PC. If you choose the cloud, we set it up on our server and give you the address to open. Either way, we stay with you through the first weeks of real use, so that problems are dealt with while they are small.
What you do. In your own building, provide the computer and give access to the office network. In the cloud, there is nothing to install: you open the address in a browser. We explain the rest as we go.
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Keep improving
What happens. Whenever you need something new, it becomes an update. Each update backs up your data first and keeps everything you have already entered.
What you do. Tell us what you would like changed. You decide what is worth doing.
The problem we solve
“Where is job 214 right now?”
In most workshops and factories, the honest answer to that question takes a while. The office has one spreadsheet. The foreman has another. There is a pile of paper forms on a clipboard, and there are a great many telephone calls. Each of these is useful on its own. The trouble is that they rarely agree with one another.
You may recognise some of this in your own business.
Paper forms that travel slowly
A form is filled in at the machine, carried to the office and typed in later, if nobody forgets. Forms get lost, get coffee on them, or are written in handwriting that nobody can read a week later.
Phone calls to find things out
A customer rings to ask whether their order will be ready on Thursday. To answer, you ring the foreman, who asks the worker, who goes to look. Then somebody rings the customer back.
Reports built by hand
At the end of the month, someone spends days copying figures from sheets and forms into a report for the management or for a client. When it is finished, it is already out of date.
If this sounds like your business, nothing is wrong with the way you run it. It is what happens when a business grows faster than its tools. It can be put right without asking your people to work in a different way.
What we build
A system built around your process
Your “process” is simply the steps a job goes through in your business, from the day it arrives to the day it leaves. Every business has one, even if it has never been written down.
Take a joinery workshop as an example. A job starts as a customer’s order. It becomes a list of pieces to cut. The pieces are cut, then assembled, then sanded, then finished, and finally delivered. At every one of those steps, somebody needs to know what is ready for them, and the office needs to know what is done.
A system built around that process has those same steps in it, in that same order, with the names your people already use. The person at the sanding bench sees the pieces that are waiting for them. The office sees, without asking anyone, how far every order has got.
Most software that you can buy off the shelf works the other way round. It comes with its own steps and its own words, and you spend months changing your habits to suit it. We do the reverse. We learn your steps first, and then we build the system to follow them.
Your steps, in your order
Nobody has to bend the way they work to fit a general product.
Your words and your forms
Reports, inspection requests and delivery notes come out as PDF and Excel under your own name and logo, with the form numbers your quality system expects.
The right view for each person
Each person sees the jobs and screens that belong to their own work, and nothing more.
Where your system runs
Two ways to run it
Your system can run in one of two places, and you choose. In both cases your staff open it in a web browser and see the same screens. What differs is where the computer that holds the system stands, and who looks after that computer.
A “server” sounds like something special, but it is only a computer that other computers ask for information. In the first option it is an ordinary Windows PC in your own office. In the second it is a computer that we rent in a professional data centre.
Choosing, and changing your mind. You choose when we write your proposal, and we are glad to talk it through first. The cloud option is paid as a subscription. Neither choice is final: you can start on one and move to the other later, and your data comes with you. We will arrange the move for you.
We do not say that one option is safer than the other. Each depends on different things. The local option depends on the PC in your office and its electricity. The cloud option depends on your internet connection and on our server.
Questions people ask us
The worries we hear before anyone buys software
Do my staff need computer skills, and will they need training?
They need the skills they already have. The system opens in a web browser, the same program people use to read the news, so anyone who can fill in a form on a website can use it.
When we install it, we show each person the parts that concern their own work. The screens use your own words, and each person sees only what their job needs, which keeps things simple.
What if the internet or the electricity goes out?
On your premises. If the internet goes out, nothing changes. The system does not need it, because it runs on a computer inside your building and your staff reach it over your office network.
If the electricity goes out, the server stops like any other computer. When the power returns and the computer is switched on again, the system is back, with everything that was saved before. Something typed at the exact moment of the cut may need entering again. We suggest putting the server on a small battery unit, the kind sold for office computers, so that it can shut itself down properly.
In the cloud. The system needs the internet. If the connection is down where you are, you cannot open the system from there until it returns, while people elsewhere with a working connection can carry on. If our server is out of action, nobody can open it until we have put it right. A power cut in your office stops your computers, but the system itself is not in your office, so it is there again as soon as your computers and connection are.
Who owns the data, and can I get it out?
You do, with either option. Every report can be saved as an Excel file or a PDF whenever you like.
On your premises. The data is stored on your computer, not ours. The nightly backups are full copies of your database (the organised store where all the information is kept) which you hold yourself.
In the cloud. The data is stored on our server, but it is still yours. You can export any report to Excel or PDF at any time, and if you leave, you get a full copy of your data.
What happens when we need a change later?
Businesses change, so the system is meant to change with yours. Tell us what you need. We agree with you what the change involves, make it, and deliver it as an update.
Every update takes a backup of your data first and keeps everything you have entered. If something goes wrong while an update is being applied, the system puts itself back as it was.
What equipment do I need?
On your premises. Three things you probably have already: one ordinary Windows PC to act as the server, the network that already connects the computers in your office, and a web browser on the computers your staff will use. Any common browser will do.
The server PC needs to be switched on whenever your people are working, and at night when the backup is made. We will tell you whether the PC you have in mind is suitable before you spend anything.
In the cloud. No server PC. You need a working internet connection wherever people will use the system, and a web browser on their computers or phones.
Which option should we choose?
It depends on how you work. Running the system on your premises tends to suit a single workshop on one site, especially where the internet connection is unreliable and you want everything kept in-house. It needs a PC that someone keeps switched on.
The cloud tends to suit a company with several sites, people who work away from the office, or nobody to look after a server PC. It needs a working internet connection wherever people use the system.
If you cannot decide, tell us about your business and we will talk it through with you. You are not locked in: you can move from one to the other later, and your data comes with you.
Is it safe?
Every person has their own account and their own password. The system knows who is signed in and shows that person only the jobs and screens that belong to their work, so a person on the shop floor does not see the office’s screens.
Every change is recorded: what was changed, by whom, and when. If a figure is altered, you can find out who altered it.
On your premises. The system lives inside your building and is not put on the internet, so people outside have no way in to look at it.
In the cloud. Your staff open the system at a secure web address, over an encrypted connection, and nobody gets in without their own account and password.
We do not say that one option is safer than the other. Each depends on different things: the local option on the PC in your office and its electricity, the cloud option on your internet connection and on our server.
How long does it take?
It depends on how big the work is. A system for one department takes less time than a system for a whole factory. We cannot give you an honest number before we have listened to how you work, so we do not guess.
After the first conversation we write you a proposal that says what we will build and how long we expect it to take. The proposal costs you nothing and commits you to nothing.
What does it cost?
The price depends on the size of the work: how many people will use the system, how many steps it has to follow, and how many reports and forms you need. For that reason we do not publish a price list.
A first conversation and a proposal are free of obligation. The proposal states the price before any work starts, and you decide whether to go ahead.
The price also depends on whether you run the system on your own premises or in the cloud. The cloud option is paid as a subscription.
Our systems
Systems we have built
For steel fabrication workshops
A system we have built for steel fabrication workshops has a page of its own.
Contact
Tell us about your business
A first conversation is free of obligation. Write a few lines about what you make and what troubles you most today, and we will take it from there. One email is enough to start.