Work out whether it can be done, before anyone quotes for it

Tools that return a verdict

Answer a set of questions about your situation and get a verdict you can act on.

• 01

  Integration Readiness Assessment

  Score a proposed integration across the five dimensions that decide whether it survives contact with a plant floor, and find out which one is your binding constraint.

  6 minutes · A scored readiness profile and the two weakest dimensions named

• 02

  Automation Payback Calculator

  Work out the recoverable hours, the build cost band and the payback period on a process you are thinking of automating — including the case where the answer is don't.

  3 minutes · Annual recoverable hours, payback in months, and a go / no-go verdict

• 03

  Integration Scope Estimator

  Describe the equipment, the sites and the compliance load, and get the complexity band, the ranked cost drivers and an engineering duration range.

  4 minutes · A complexity band, ranked drivers and a weeks-of-engineering range

• 04

  Legacy Equipment Connectivity Checker

  Can you get data off that machine, and what does it take? Pick the vintage, the controller and the ports you actually have, and get the viable route — including the retrofit case where there is no digital interface at all.

  4 minutes · A ranked set of connection routes with effort and risk against each

• 05

  OT/IT Segmentation Planner

  Map your plant or terminal onto the Purdue model, and see every boundary crossing that needs a control before an integration project opens it.

  5 minutes · A zone map, the crossings that need a boundary, and the control for each

• 06

  ISO 42001 Readiness Check

  A clause-mapped self-assessment of your AI management system against ISO/IEC 42001, returning the gaps in the order an auditor would raise them.

  8 minutes · A clause-by-clause gap list, ranked by audit exposure

• 07

  Predictive Maintenance Viability Screener

  Test one asset and one failure mode against what condition monitoring can actually detect, before anybody buys a sensor.

  4 minutes · A viability verdict, the sensing method, and expected warning time

Frameworks to put straight to work

Written methods, free to print and copy, and yours to use on any project — ours included.

• 11

  The Orion Five Readiness Model

  The five dimensions behind the readiness assessment, written out in full: what each one measures, how it fails, and what it costs to fix before a build rather than during one.

  12 minute read · The method, with the scoring bands and the remediation for each

• 12

  Integration Specification Template

  The sections an integration brief needs before it goes out to vendors, so that three quotes come back describing the same job.

  Template · A printable specification skeleton with the questions filled in

• 13

  Pilot-to-Production Checklist

  The gates a working pilot has to clear before it is allowed to run the business, and the specific ones most SME automation dies at.

  Checklist · Six gates, with the evidence each one needs to be signed off

• 14

  Integrator Evaluation Scorecard

  How to compare integration vendors on what will actually determine the outcome, weighted and scored — including the questions we would rather you asked us.

  Scorecard · A weighted scorecard you can run against any shortlist, ours included

An integrator who will only tell you whether your project is viable after you have engaged them is not selling engineering judgement, they are selling access to it. The judgement in these tools is the same judgement we would apply in a scoping call — encoded, published, and yours whether or not you ever call us.

The trade is straightforward. Some of the people who run these will find their answer and get on with it themselves, and some will find a constraint they would rather not solve alone. We would rather meet the second group already knowing what their binding constraint is.