QUICK OVERVIEW
What to take away from the article
- Deduct inspections, repairs and automation maintenance from the time saved.
- Do not add the value of working capacity a second time as a monetary saving.
- The costs include licenses, support, implementation and training.
Select one recurring process
The sentence "we want to automate the company" is a good direction, but a weak entry for the first step. Choose a specific activity: assigning an e-mail to an order, preparing an offer from the price list or transferring the order to the warehouse. Write down what the process starts, what inputs it needs, and when it's done.
Observe both common and exceptional cases. A process that can be easily automated for one product may need to be checked for an individual discount or an incomplete entry. Therefore, first find out what part of the work has repeatable rules and who handles the rest.
Compare the work before and after, including inspections
If an offer today takes ten minutes and the automation prepares it in a minute, you still don't have to save nine minutes. The time for checking, correcting or supplementing documents is included in the result after automation. Also, check whether the work has just been transferred to another person.
The fictitious example from our calculator calculates with five people. Everyone devotes 60 hours a month to the chosen routine; after automation, it remains 24 hours, including checks. The difference is 36 hours per person and 180 hours per month per team. In 12 full months, it is 2,160 hours. This is a model assumption, not a measured client result.
The value of time and money are two different views
With a model cost of €2,200 per month and 160 working hours, the hourly cost is €13.75. The freed 180 hours thus have a capacity value of €2,475 per month. However, wages may remain the same; the money will not automatically be added to the account.
The financial calculation is therefore based on a separate assumption: the company will reduce external administration by €600, paid overtime by €400 and duplicate licenses by €200 per month. A total of €1,200. Each item must be verified in a specific company and the same load must be counted only once. This amount is not multiplied by the number of people.
Subtract both operation and installation
In the fictitious example, operation costs €300 per month and implementation with training costs €4,500. The monthly financial difference is 1,200 − 300 = €900. It is €10,800 per year; in the first year after deduction of the introduction €6,300. Simple payback is 4,500 ÷ 900 = 5 months.
The model assumes 12 full months after launch with the same amount of work. Does not include accrual, taxes or sales growth. If expenses do not decrease at all, free time will remain, but the financial result will be -€3,600 per year and -€8,100 in the first year. This scenario must also be evaluated openly.
Measure the pile before expanding
Agree on a comparable amount of work and monitor the time, number of exceptions and quality of the result. The preparation of the offer is only successful when it uses the correct price list and the customer's approved discount. A quick wrong bid will create more work.
After the pilot, decide what to automate next and what to leave for approval. The calculator on the AI automation page allows you to adjust all the main assumptions according to your company. A useful first step is to replace model hours and expenses with your own measurements.
