What does automation with GembaOps cost?

The 20-minute ops audit is free. Builds come in three sizes: Starter $3.5K–$5K, Growth $8K–$14K (most common), and Scale programs $18K–$30K — with custom scope quoted fixed before any work starts. Before anything is built you see the math — if the return isn't obvious, GembaOps will say so.

Do we actually need AI for this?

Maybe not. Half of what slows a floor down needs clean, reliable logic rather than AI. AI earns its place on messy work like reading documents, classifying email, and drafting summaries. You always know which tool you're getting and why.

What should we automate first?

That's the point of the free audit: finding your three highest-ROI candidates and ranking them. Usually it's the boring one — the weekly report or the re-keyed data — not the flashy one.

Automation for manufacturing & distribution

Automate the manual work that's eating your operations.

Q: We're not a tech company. Will my team actually use it?

The automation is built around how your team already works, usually inside tools they already open every day like Outlook, Excel, and Teams. You see the workflow before it's built, and it ships with documentation and training.

GembaOps builds automation — clean rule-based workflows and AI — for manufacturers and distributors, designed on the floor by someone who's actually run one.

Book a free 20-minute ops audit See what I build

Cut manual reporting hours
Kill repetitive data entry
Catch errors before they ship

現場 Gemba — “the place where the real work happens.” Automation, built on the floor.

Floor → dashboard, on its ownRunning

Shift report: 12 hrs → 45 min/wk Errors caught before they ship Runs 24/7

Invoice #4821 parsed · matched to PO · posted

Cut manual reportingHours of shift & status reports, automated

Kill repetitive data entryInvoices & records into your systems

Catch errors before they shipChecks that run on every record

What changes

Outcomes, not software.

You don't buy automation for its own sake. You buy back hours, fewer mistakes, and throughput you can't get by hiring. That's what we measure.

Less downtime

Status, alerts, and handoffs move on their own — work doesn't stall waiting on a person to copy a number.

More throughput

The same team clears more orders, invoices, and reports because the busywork runs itself.

Lower cost

Reclaimed hours go to higher-value work instead of another headcount on the same manual task.

Fewer errors

Validation runs on every record, so the typo that becomes a wrong shipment gets caught up front.

Two ways to build

AI is the sharpest tool in the kit — not the whole kit.

Half of what slows a floor down doesn't need AI at all; it needs clean, reliable logic. We pick the right tool for the job, and tell you which one it is.

AI Workflows

For the messy stuff — reading invoices and PDFs, classifying email, drafting replies, summarizing reports. Where judgment used to be required, AI does the first pass.

Explore AI workflows

Clean Logic Workflows

For the predictable stuff — Power Automate, Power BI, and the Microsoft 365 stack moving data, triggering approvals, and building the dashboards your team refreshes by hand today.

Explore clean logic workflows

The toolkit

Built on tools you already own.

No rip-and-replace. We build on the Microsoft Power Platform and the integrations you already pay for — and bring in modern AI only where it earns its place.

Microsoft 365Power AutomatePower AppsPower BIPower Query · MSharePointMakeZapiern8nModern AI models

Services

Four ways to get the floor running itself.

Start small and low-risk. Scale into a full build or ongoing advisory when the ROI is obvious.

AI Readiness Audit

A fixed-scope review of your operation to find the 3 highest-ROI automation opportunities. Fast, low-risk — the best place to start.

Process Automation Build

I design and build the automation end-to-end. You get a working system plus documentation your team can run.

Team Training & Workshops

Get your ops team fluent in automation for their workflows — practical and floor-specific, not generic ChatGPT 101.

Fractional AI Advisor

Ongoing monthly advisory to keep automating as you grow — a steady hand on the roadmap without a full-time hire.

See pricing & engagement models

Do the math

What is that manual task actually costing you?

A simple rule from a mentor: take the salary, divide by 2,000 to get an hourly cost, and price the task. If you can automate it for a quarter of what it costs you every year, that's a 4× return — you do it.

How many people do this task?

Hours per week, each

Average annual salary (per person)

We convert to an hourly cost using salary ÷ 2,000 hours.

Estimated cost to automate it (one-time)

Starter builds run $3.5K–$5K; a typical end-to-end build is $8K–$14K.

This task costs you about

every year, in loaded labor.

Hours spent per year0

Loaded hourly cost$0

4× line (automate under this)$0

First-year return—

Payback period—

Enter your numbers to see the return.

Estimates only — for a real number we measure your actual workflow during the free audit.

Get your real numbers — book the audit

The 3D Method

No black boxes. You see the workflow before anything gets automated.

Discovery

I go to the gemba — map how the work actually flows today and find where the hours and errors leak.

Design

We agree on the target: what stays human, what gets automated, and the measurable result we're after.

Deploy

I build it, document it, and prove the before/after in real numbers — then hand you a system that runs.

See the full process & tech stack

Beyond the plant floor

Run a local service business instead?

Missed calls, no-shows, slow quotes, unpaid invoices — money leaks out of a service business eight different ways, and we build the systems that stop every one of them.

HVAC & tradesDental & med-spasLaw & accountingAuto shopsSalonsContractors+ 60 more

Find your leak — see Industries

See it move

Watch a workflow run.

This is what "automated" actually looks like — work moving on its own, and a human pulled in only where judgment is needed. Pick a scenario.

Hand-work eliminated this run: 0 min

Simplified for the screen — real builds run inside the Microsoft 365 / ERP stack you already own. See how a real build works →

Frank Papaleo

Founder — GembaOps

Operator

BackgroundYears running production operations — the floor, not a slide deck
ApproachGo to the gemba: watch the real work before touching a workflow
Builds withMicrosoft Power Platform, clean logic, and modern AI where it earns its place
TeamJust me — you work with the person who builds it, start to finish
ProofBefore/after numbers on every build, documented so your team can run it

Long Island, NYServing the USIn person & remote

Meet the operator

An ops person who learned AI — not a tech person who learned to talk to clients.

I've been the person the shift report got dumped on. I've chased the mis-keyed order, rebuilt the spreadsheet at 6 AM, and coordinated production the manual way — then learned to build with AI. GembaOps exists because the best automation ideas were standing on the floor the whole time.

15–20

hrs/week the typical ops team loses to manual work

2–6 wks

to design, build & hand off a working automation

100%

of builds documented so your team can run them

Read the full story

90-second diagnostic

Where is your week actually going?

Four questions, no email required. You get the automation candidate I'd look at first — and what killing it would take.

Question 1 of 4

FAQ

Fair questions, straight answers.

The 20-minute ops audit is free. Builds come in three sizes — Starter $3.5K–$5K, Growth $8K–$14K (most common), Scale programs $18K–$30K — and custom scope is quoted fixed before any work starts. Before anything is built you'll see the math — if the return isn't obvious, I'll tell you not to do it.

That's exactly who this is for. The automation is built around how your team already works — usually inside tools they already open every day, like Outlook, Excel, and Teams. You see the workflow before it's built, and it ships with documentation and training, not a manual nobody reads.

Maybe not — and I'll say so. Half of what slows a floor down needs clean, reliable logic, not AI. AI earns its place on the messy parts: reading documents, classifying email, drafting summaries. You'll always know which tool you're getting and why.

Every build is documented so your team can run and fix it — no shadow IT, no black boxes. It's built on supported platforms you own, not something exotic. And if you want a steady hand on it, that's what the monthly advisory is for.

The sweet spot is 50–500 employee operations, but the real test is simpler: if a manual task eats 5+ hours a week, it's worth running the math. Try the ROI calculator with your own numbers.

That's the whole point of the free audit: we find your three highest-ROI candidates and rank them. Usually it's the boring one — the weekly report or the re-keyed data — not the flashy one. The 90-second diagnostic above gives you a head start.

More questions answered on the process page

Founding client window — case-study slots open

Find your three biggest time-wasters — free.

Book a 20-minute ops audit. We'll walk through where your team is losing hours, and I'll tell you what's worth automating first. No pitch, no obligation — and early clients get founder pricing and become the first named before/after results.

Book your free ops audit Prefer email? frank@gembaops.com