Manufacturers
AI automation for manufacturers
In a manufacturer’s office, customer orders, supplier confirmations, invoices and new accounts often move between email, spreadsheets and the ERP by hand, and that work repeats every week. Kestrel is an AI-native consulting firm in St. Louis that deploys an AI agent to find that work and automate it, with your team approving every automation.
Where to look first
- Customer orders: purchase orders that arrive by email and get keyed into the ERP.
- Supplier confirmations: order acknowledgments with changed dates or prices, updated in the ERP by hand.
- Vendor invoices: bills matched to purchase orders and receipts before payment.
- Invoice follow-up: overdue customer invoices checked and chased.
- Customer setup: new accounts created in the CRM, ERP and accounting system.
- Reports: weekly numbers assembled from several systems into one spreadsheet.
What we don’t touch
The agent is designed for office software: email, spreadsheets, the ERP, the CRM and the accounting system. It doesn’t connect to machines, production lines or anything on the shop floor.
How it works
- Connect
You authorize only the tools the workflow touches. The agent reaches nothing else, and you can revoke its access at any time.
- Learn
It studies records and activity in those tools to map how the work really moves, step by step.
- Find
It shows where the time goes: the retyping, the duplicate entry and the handoffs between tools.
- Automate
It drafts the automation. Nothing runs until your team switches it on, every run is logged, and you can pause it at any time.
An example with fictional data
- Supplier confirmation by email
- Agent compares it to the PO
- ERP updated
- Changes to the buyer
About 80 purchase orders a month go to suppliers. Confirmations come back by email, often with a changed date or price, and a buyer updates each one in the ERP by hand. With the automation on, confirmations that match are recorded automatically, and the ones with changes beyond your tolerance go to the buyer with the difference highlighted.
Illustrative example, not a customer result.
Manufacturing in St. Louis
Greater St. Louis, Inc. counts about 2,750 manufacturers and 118,000 manufacturing employees in the region. We are based here too, close enough to meet your team in person and review what the agent finds with you. More about Kestrel in St. Louis.
Questions
Common questions
Early access
Start with one workflow.
Tell us which software your team uses and where the repetitive work is. Our agent is in development, and the founders read every request.