Most teams start with one person on Operations Workbench Starter, free for 30 days. Add LevelOneAI in Claude or ChatGPT, connect your email and add any exports you have, such as open POs or a schedule. Starter shows which changes put orders at risk, with the evidence, and tracks each one to a close. When the whole team needs it, with live ERP data, approvals and write-back, that's the Operations Workbench.

How do Starter, the Workbench and the Operations Engine fit together?

The LevelOneAI Operations Engine does the work: it treats each order, PO or job as one record (Work), compares what changed with what was promised (Context), works out what it affects and who needs to decide (Decision), and assigns, drafts and tracks the next step (Action), until it's resolved. Starter runs the engine on one person's email and the documents they add. A Workbench runs it across a whole team's email, ERP and CRM for one workflow, with live data, approvals and write-back.

Is there a free trial?

Yes. Operations Workbench Starter is free for 30 days, and you don't need a card. After that it's $199/month or $1,990/year (two months free), for 1 user and 1 mailbox. If you don't continue, your account becomes read-only and your data is deleted 30 days later.

What do I need to use Starter?

A paid Claude or ChatGPT plan (the free tiers don't include the access it needs) and a Gmail or Outlook mailbox. For work email, a business or enterprise plan from that provider is recommended. Documents are optional: exports from any ERP or spreadsheet work.

What's the difference between Starter and the Operations Workbench?

Starter works from one person's email and the exports they add, and you set it up yourself in minutes. It's built to show the value on your own work. The Operations Workbench connects live to your ERP and planning data, runs on its own, puts the whole team in one queue, and adds approvals, drafted follow-ups and write-back. Starter fees paid in the 6 months before you buy a Workbench are credited toward its setup.

Which documents should I add to Starter?

Whatever you have, or none. It works on email from the first run, and tells you which document would sharpen the results most. Typical ones are an open-PO export, a production schedule, open sales orders or an AR aging report. It keeps only the fields it needs from them, encrypted, never the files.

It says what it doesn't know. Each fact shows its source and when it arrived. When an email could match more than one order, it asks instead of guessing, and when a document is missing it says "impact not assessed" rather than "no impact." Your team makes the call.

How does billing work?

Starter is billed monthly or annually by card, with a receipt emailed for every payment and invoices on your billing page. Cancel anytime. A Workbench is a one-time setup fee, invoiced on the schedule in your quote, plus an annual platform fee that starts at go-live.

When does my team need a Workbench?

When the work depends on more than one person's inbox: the evidence sits in your ERP, CRM or planning data, several people need to see the same item, and someone has to make sure it closes. A Workbench gives the team one queue, one record per item, approvals and a team view.

What's built, and what do you configure for us?

The Operations Engine, the work queue, the work record, approvals, follow-up tracking and the team view are built. For each Workbench we configure the connections to your systems, the rules that decide what counts as an exception, who owns what, what closes an item, and whether approved changes are written back. Which systems it connects to, and how, is worked out during setup.

Operations Workbench Starter is free for 30 days, then $199/month or $1,990/year. An Operations Workbench is a one-time setup fee, from $20,000 per workflow, plus an annual platform fee that's included in your quote. There's no ongoing services fee: once it's live, your team runs it, and our help is optional. The platform fee covers hosting, AI processing, connector updates and improvements to the Operations Engine. It starts at go-live, and in the first year you can cancel 90 days after go-live if the agreed measures aren't met. The payback calculator compares the setup fee with what the delay costs you each year. The next Workbench reuses the connections you already have, so it costs less to set up. See Pricing for what's included.

How long does setup take?

Starter works the same day. A Workbench typically goes live in 6 to 12 weeks, depending on how many systems it connects and how complex the rules are. We agree the baseline and what success looks like before setup starts.

What happens to our ERP and CRM?

They stay where they are and keep the master data. A Workbench reads from them. Write-back is optional: whether approved updates go back, and to which systems, is decided during setup. Nothing changes in your systems without approval.

What data does LevelOneAI keep?

It's designed to keep only what it needs to run the work, such as references to the source, the facts it extracted (a date, a quantity, a price), status, owners and decisions. For a Workbench, exactly what's stored is agreed with you during setup. Starter never stores email: it keeps short labels, plus the fields it needs from documents you add, encrypted.

What will this ask of our IT team?

Starter needs no IT: you connect your own email in Claude or ChatGPT, and there's a one-page security summary to share with IT. A Workbench needs read-only access to the systems the workflow uses, granted once by whoever administers them, and typically a few hours of IT time during setup. Nothing is installed, and nothing changes in your systems without approval. See Growing Businesses if you don't have an IT department, or Enterprises for how we fit an IT review.

What happens when it isn't sure, or data is missing?

If an email could belong to more than one order or PO, it shows the candidates with their evidence and asks a person to confirm, instead of guessing. If a source is unavailable or a record can't be found, the item is marked incomplete, so your team knows the picture isn't complete. Every fact is labeled confirmed, conflicting, inferred or unknown.

Is this a product or a consulting engagement?

A product. The Operations Engine, the work queue, the work record and approvals are built. Setup configures them to your systems, rules and owners for one workflow. You pay a one-time setup fee and an annual platform fee. There's no ongoing services fee, so your team runs it without us.

Do you have a SOC 2 report?

No SOC 2 report yet. We'll walk your security team through the data flow and complete your security questionnaire on request.

What happens to our data if we stop?

You can export your work history and audit trail. With Starter, your data is deleted 30 days after you cancel or after a trial ends without a paid plan. Your ERP and CRM keep their own data, because they were the record all along.

That's decided with you during scoping, based on your security and IT requirements.

To read the messy information around a piece of work (the email, the attachment, the system field), match it to the right order or PO, compare it with what was promised, and recommend the next step. Every fact is labeled confirmed, conflicting, inferred or unknown, with its source. Your people make the call, and nothing changes in a system without approval.

Why can't we just add an AI agent?

You can, and it will do the steps. What an agent won't do on its own is keep one record of each order across email and your systems, notice a change nobody asked about, know which promise it breaks, and keep the issue open until it's resolved. That's what you'd have to build and maintain around it. LevelOneAI already does that, and works alongside the agents you use. See Why AI Agents Fail under Resources.

How is this different from process mining?

Process mining reads event logs from your ERP or CRM, so it can't see what happens in email, spreadsheets and phone calls, which is where most exceptions start. It also tells you where the process breaks; it doesn't work each exception to a close. A Workbench does.

Why not wait for our ERP or CRM vendor to add AI?

Use it. ERP AI is getting good at work inside the ERP, such as reading a supplier's email and proposing the PO change. A Workbench is for what happens next, across systems: which jobs and customer orders the change puts at risk, what the planner's sheet says, who has to approve, and whether it was actually resolved. If the problem starts and ends inside your ERP, its own AI may be all you need.

When is our ERP's own AI enough?

When the problem starts and ends inside the ERP, updating the record is the whole job, and everything the decision needs is already there. Add a Workbench when the change matters because of what it affects elsewhere (jobs, customer orders, invoices), when the numbers people trust live in a spreadsheet or portal, when resolving it takes several people and an approval, or when someone has to confirm it was actually resolved.

What if our workflow changes?

Rules, owners, thresholds and closing conditions are configuration, so they can be updated as your process changes, without a new project.

What if our team doesn't adopt it?

A Workbench brings the context to each piece of work instead of asking people to go and look for it, and it fits around the systems they already use. We also agree the measures up front, so you can see whether it's working.

All insights

General

When a Missing Ingredient Puts Production at Risk, Who Connects the Dots?

By Shanshan Ma

In prepared-food manufacturing, a late ingredient usually shows up in an email before it shows up in the ERP. How to connect that change to the production run it affects and follow it through to resolution.

"The roasted pepper purée is a day late. Does that hit Thursday's run?"

A supplier emails the buyer at 4:40 PM: the purée for Thursday's enchilada run will arrive Friday morning. The PO in the ERP still shows Wednesday. The MRP still shows the run as fully covered. The planner finds out Thursday at 6 AM, when receiving doesn't have it.

The information existed for 14 hours. Nobody connected it to the run in time.

The change starts outside the system

ERP and MRP do their jobs: requirements, inventory, purchase orders, schedules. But in prepared foods, most exceptions start somewhere else:

A supplier emails a new delivery date or a short shipment.
A packaging delivery slips, and the film no longer matches the run.
A substitute ingredient needs quality approval.
The supplier's latest date doesn't match the one in purchasing.

Shelf life is short, packaging is product-specific and customer windows are tight, so there's little slack to absorb any of it. Someone has to link the email to the PO, work out which runs it affects, check stock, and get procurement, planning, quality and the warehouse to a decision. Usually by searching inboxes, forwarding threads and updating a spreadsheet.

That manual layer around the planning system is where the delays happen.

Another dashboard won't close the gap

A dashboard shows PO status, but not the supplier's email unless someone types it in. The ERP holds the expected date, but nothing makes sure the planner has seen the revised one. A shortage spreadsheet is only as current as whoever last updated it.

The systems aren't missing features. The work of turning new information into a coordinated decision crosses the boundaries between them. Replacing the ERP won't fix a late purée.

Our view: treat every exception as open until it's resolved

LevelOneAI's position is that a material exception is a piece of work with a state, not a message in someone's inbox. When a supplier reports a change, it should be tracked through four questions:

What changed? The new date, the old date, the material, and the email or document that says so.
What does it affect? The POs, requirements and production runs that depend on it, drawn from your planning and inventory data. The planning system stays authoritative.
What has to happen next, and who owns it? Procurement confirms an expedite, planning checks stock or timing, quality reviews a substitute.
Is it actually resolved? It stays open until there's evidence. A follow-up email isn't a resolution, and "we're looking into it" isn't a delivery date.

That fourth question is where most teams lose track, and it's the one a summary or a dashboard can't answer.

Where LevelOneAI fits

AI reads the supplier emails and attachments and pulls out what changed. Structured logic links it to the PO and the affected runs, keeps the exception open and shows who owes the next step. People decide whether to change the schedule, approve a substitute or release product. The ERP, MRP and quality records stay the source of truth.

You can start today with Operations Workbench Starter on a buyer's inbox, plus a production schedule export. It catches when a supplier commitment changes, like a delivery date moving from Wednesday to Friday, and shows which production runs it puts at risk. Linking those changes to live production and ERP data for the whole team is what an Operations Workbench adds, read-only at first, with a person approving every action. (For what repeated changes tell you about a supplier, see Your ERP Says 2 Weeks. Your Supplier Takes 6.)

Start with one exception type

Pick one plant, one team and one kind of exception, such as late ingredients or missing packaging. Before changing anything, take a baseline:

How many of these exceptions happen in a typical week?
How long does it take to learn which run is affected?
How often does a revised date fail to reach the planner in time?
How many exceptions are still open, and does anyone know for sure?

Then see whether a connected workflow moves those numbers. If your systems already handle it well, you don't need another layer.

Try this week

Pull last month's late ingredient deliveries. For each, note when the supplier first said so and when the planner found out.
Ask procurement and planning to list every open material exception. Compare the two lists.
Pick one exception marked "followed up." Check whether it has a confirmed date or just an email sent.

The best place to add AI may be the coordination work around your planning system, not the planning system itself.

See how the LevelOneAI Operations Engine works

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