This is the one that runs on judgment, not a calculator. Fill the readout template with what the operation told you before anyone quoted a machine. Then work the conveyor drill. Then start your Riverside page and keep it where you can find it.
Here's the template I fill on every walk. Six fields. You write what the building told you, not what you plan to do about it. Get these six right and the rest of the project has something honest to answer back to.
| Stated ask. | |
|---|---|
| Observed problem. | |
| Existing automation and its story. | |
| Maintenance reality. | |
| Building constraints. | |
| Personality and appetite. |
Read the scenario. Then before you write a single question, tell me what that conveyor is already telling you. Here's the rule I go by when I see one sitting dark.
You're visiting a distribution center for a regional food service company. At peak they ship around 800 orders a day. They pick manually, 22 full-time associates on the day shift. When you walk in, you notice a belt conveyor along one wall, powered off. The operators are moving totes to the dock with pallet jacks instead. The floor manager tells you the conveyor has been off for six months and the team prefers working without it. You're there to propose a new order fulfillment system. How do you open the discovery conversation? What are the first five questions you ask, and why? And what does that powered-off conveyor tell you before you ask a single one?
If you see a conveyor sitting powered off, then ask its story before you propose anything at all. Tradeoff: it costs you an awkward minute, standing in front of a machine nobody in the building wants to talk about. Verify: their answer tells you exactly what killed it. A compressor nobody could service, a line that stopped the whole building every time one zone jammed, a vendor who came out twice and never again. That story is the most useful thing you'll hear all day, and it's the one thing a spec sheet can never give you.
What that powered-off conveyor tells you before you ask
Your first five questions, and why
Facility readout, Riverside. Write what this operation is telling you and what it has already told you it won't tolerate. Date it. Every decision you make later answers back to this page.