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SHEET01 / 04PARTPF-HOME-26SCALE1:1
TITLEPROTOFORGE — KNOWLEDGE CAPTURE FOR STEEL-CUTTING SHOPS
DRAWN BY · J.DENNIS
DATE · 2026-06-29
CLASS · DATASHEET
FIG. 1 · STATEMENT OF INTENT

Knowledge
doesn't live in
software.
It lives in people.

I capture it, test it, and get it working for your whole team. 15 years in CNC programming. Perth's steel cutting industry.

02 / FIELD·NOTES

Your best people are the business — but they can only be in one place at a time.

03 NOTES · FROM THE FLOOR
N·01 ↳
· TRIBAL KNOWLEDGE

It's all in one or two heads.

Your best estimator knows when a bevel spec is going to bite. Your senior programmer knows how to squeeze every millimetre out of a plate.

That know-how is the actual business — and right now it lives in one or two people, one place at a time.

· IN ONE HEAD
N·02 ↳
· THE GRIND

The experts spend half their day repeating themselves.

The hundredth line item keyed in by hand. The BOM hiding on page 20 of an assembly drawing. The same wording on every quote.

It's the part of the job that's the same every time — and it's eating the hours your best people should spend on the calls only they can make.

· REPEATED DAILY
N·03 ↳
· HARD TO PASS ON

Every new hire starts from zero.

Nothing's written down in a form the next person can follow, so each hire learns it the slow way — by being shown, over and over.

The knowledge that makes the shop good is the hardest thing to hand on.

· NOT YET CAPTURED
FIG. 1A · THE APPROACH

AI takes the grind, not the people.

No black boxes. You can see what it did and why — the judgment stays yours.

03 / PROCESS·SPECIFICATION

Three phases. No consulting jargon.

REF · PF-METH-01
PHASE·01

Listen

DURATION · BY AGREEMENT

On your floor, sitting with the people who run the nesting and the quoting desk. Watching how the work actually moves through. Not pitching — learning your shop.

  • Floor walkthrough
  • Programmer shadowing
  • Handoff mapping
  • Pain-point register
PHASE·02

Capture

DURATION · BY AGREEMENT

Sit-downs with your key people. Material rules. Machine quirks. Customer stories. Everything in their head, recorded in a form the rest of the team can follow.

  • Expert sessions (recorded)
  • Runbook drafting
  • Material / tool references
  • Quoting rulebook
PHASE·03

Test

DURATION · BY AGREEMENT

Run the methods on real jobs with your team. Adjust. Re-run. Until the recorded version works as well as the person who knew it.

  • Live job validation
  • Revision cycles
  • Team handoff
  • Sign-off rev 1.0
FIG.2 · FEEDBACK·LOOP

A runbook your ops can follow. A quoting rulebook you can audit. An onboarding doc for the next hire. Nothing proprietary, nothing locked. When I leave, the system stays.

CONTACT

Want to talk it through?

30–45 minutes. Over the phone or in person. No pitch, no obligation, no consultant-speak. A conversation between people who know this industry.

BOOK INTRO CALL
SIGNED · J.DENNIS
PROTOFORGE · PERTH.WA