Seven steps from “where does AI fit” to a live integration

A supervisor wants to hear about a short pick (an order line the picker could not fill because the stock was not where the system said) before it holds up a shipment. A customer service lead wants emailed orders to reach the order system without anyone typing them in again. Both know what they want. The hard part is the path from that idea to something people use every shift.

We follow the same seven steps every time, for one integration at a time. An integration, in our words, is a piece of AI woven into the systems you already run: it reads from them, works on what it finds and hands its output to your people. Below we walk through each step, who does the work and what your side does while it happens.

Two kinds of step

Five of the seven steps we do together with you. Two of them, the design and the build, redfly does on its own. The split is deliberate. You know how your operation runs, where the work piles up and what your people will put up with. We know where AI can run, what it needs to read and how to connect it without getting in the way of the floor.

So the shared steps are the ones where your knowledge decides the outcome, and the redfly steps are the ones where it would only cost you time. You bring nothing technical. One contact on your side is enough to start.

Step one: we work out the requirements together

We learn how you operate. That means sitting with the people who do the work today and asking how a task really happens, not how the manual says it happens: where the emails come in, who keys them, what goes wrong at a shift change, which exceptions eat the afternoon.

From that, we agree on the first integration. It might be order entry from emails, automated dock appointment booking, or alerts on short picks and stock mismatches. These are examples; you pick the first integration.

Your contact's part is to open doors. They point us at the right people, explain the way things are done and help decide which problem is worth solving first.

Step two: we design it

This step is ours. We decide where the AI runs, what it reads and what it hands back. Some integrations run in the cloud; some have to run at the site. We plan for both and choose for each integration.

The design also settles what the integration touches. It reads from your warehouse system's API (the doorway a system offers to other software) or from a copy of its database; it never takes over the system that runs the floor. Its output lands in the redfly Portal as alerts, suggestions and dashboards. Your side only answers the odd question.

Step three: we review it together

We present the design to you and refine it together. This is where your people check it against the floor. Does the alert reach the right supervisor? Does the suggestion arrive early enough to act on? Will a shift lead trust a line on a screen, or ignore it?

Your contact brings the people who will use it. Changes are cheap at this point, so we would rather hear an objection now than after the build.

Step four: we build it

redfly builds the integration against your systems. Your side mostly carries on with its day. We may need your contact to arrange access or explain how a field is used, but the build itself is our work.

The design and the build are ours; the judgement about your floor stays yours.

Steps five and six: pilot and test, together

A small group uses the integration on real work. Not a demo and not a quiet afternoon: actual orders, actual exceptions, actual shift changes. The pilot group tells us what helps, what gets in the way and what they ignore.

Then we test it together with a set of checks until it holds up on a busy floor. Peaks, exceptions and shift changes change how a system behaves, and an integration that works in a quiet demo is not finished. Your people judge whether the output makes sense; we fix what does not.

Throughout, a person stays in charge. The AI suggests, alerts and prepares; your people decide what happens next.

Step seven: we roll it out together

It goes live for everyone, under our watchful eye. We stay close while the wider team starts to rely on it and adjust where the floor tells us to.

Your contact helps the rest of the team take it up. The pilot group has already used it on real work, which makes them good guides for everyone else.

What it asks of your side

Across the seven steps, your people give their time where their knowledge matters:

• explaining how the work happens today, in step one
• checking the design against the floor, in step three
• using it on real work and judging the output, in steps five to seven

The technical work, from where the AI runs to how it connects to your systems, stays with us. That keeps the load on your side to what only your people can do.

redfly sits between knowing what you want from AI and having it live on your floor. You bring how things work today; we design, build and go live with you, one integration at a time.