AI consulting for manufacturers, with the work shown first.
ColabContent is a Boston AI consulting house that builds custom automation for job shops and contract manufacturers of 20 to 250 employees. Start with the $499 AI-Ready Audit, which names the system worth building, or get your shop's cost benchmark memo by email in 2 minutes. After the audit, a principal builds a working prototype on your own data in 7 to 10 days, before any build fee. Custom builds are one fixed fee starting at $10,000, with the code owned by the shop at handoff.
Start with the audit. Neither option puts you on a sales call.
What a shop prototype usually is.
Four prototypes come up most often for job shops and contract manufacturers: quoting drafted from the RFQ (request for quote) package, purchase orders entered and checked against the winning quote, certificates of conformance assembled automatically, and ERP (the system that runs finance, inventory and orders) data re-keyed once instead of typed twice.
You name the task. These are the four that shops of 20 to 250 employees ask for most, so you can see the shape of what arrives.
Quoting from the RFQ package
The customer's RFQ and drawing set read, the part numbers and quantities pulled out, prior runs of the same or similar parts found in a fictitious job history, and a draft quote built from your own routing and material costs for an estimator to approve.
Purchase order entry
The customer PO read from email or a portal PDF, the line items matched to existing part numbers, the pricing and delivery dates checked against the quote that won the work, and the discrepancies listed before anything is keyed into the ERP.
Certificates of conformance and material certs
The shipment's certificate package assembled from heat numbers, inspection records and the customer's own quality clauses, drafted in their required format instead of being rebuilt by hand for every release.
ERP re-keying and job status
Data that today gets typed into Epicor, Global Shop Solutions or JobBOSS and again into a spreadsheet moves once, with a review screen before anything is written, and a plain-language answer to where a job actually stands.
How the engagement runs.
Every engagement runs the same way: the $499 AI-Ready Audit names the constraint and prices it, a working prototype on your own data proves the fix before any build fee, and a fixed fee from $10,000 is agreed in writing before the build starts. The steps below are that sequence in order.
The $499 audit you start with here is the first step. Everything after it is optional and priced up front.
The $499 AI-Ready Audit
A ranked report on your own numbers, the same day, naming the system worth building. Either side can stop there.
Prototype on your own data
Under NDA (a signed non-disclosure agreement), on a representative slice of real jobs, within 7 to 10 days. If it does not perform to the audit, you owe nothing and keep the work.
Fixed-fee build
One fixed fee starting at $10,000, quoted after the prototype performs, depending on integration depth, inside your own cloud tenant (a private cloud account). You receive the code, prompts, runbook (the written operating instructions) and documentation. No per-seat fee, no platform to renew.
The questions shops ask first.
Answers to what an AI consultant for manufacturers costs, what happens after the audit names the system worth building, what the cost benchmark memo actually contains, and whether any of this leads to a sales call. Each answer below is written to stand on its own, so it can be read without the rest of the page.
What happens after the audit?
After the audit names the system worth building, a principal builds a working prototype of it on the shop's own data in 7 to 10 days, before any build fee. Past prototypes have covered reading an RFQ package and drafting the quote, entering a customer purchase order, assembling the certificate of conformance and material certs, and moving data between Epicor, Global Shop Solutions or JobBOSS and the rest of the shop floor.
What is in the cost benchmark memo?
The memo takes six numbers you type in (estimators and engineers, their blended rate, hours per week they spend quoting and re-keying RFQ data, production control and admin headcount, their rate and their hours per week on order entry and shop paperwork) and returns the annual dollar leak on each line and the total. It is emailed within about a minute of submitting the form.
What if the prototype does not work?
You owe nothing and keep the work done so far. The engagement stops there, with no fee due.
How long does the whole process take?
The audit arrives the same day, the prototype in 7 to 10 more, and a fixed-fee build is quoted before it starts.
What is expected of the shop during this process?
Your own numbers for the audit, and a slice of real job data under NDA (a signed non-disclosure agreement) for the prototype. No code, no ERP access changes, no meetings.
Does this lead to a sales call?
No. The audit report and the cost benchmark memo both arrive by email with no call attached, and a principal reads and replies to every request personally. A prototype, if one follows, is scoped in writing first.
Rather just ask?
Send a question from the homepage form and a principal replies. Or start with the audit and get a ranked list back the same day.