We only really need the extra capacity for about eight weeks a year. Does that justify a build?
Usually yes, because the eight weeks are where the money and the risk both sit. We size the first project so it is paid for by one pack — normally the hiring and induction side, since that is where the overtime and the missed shifts come from — and then make sure the same system does something useful in the off months, like keeping supplier documents current so the spring audit is not a scramble.
Would you build anything that touches the line itself?
No. Line controls, retort logic and anything else on operational technology are somebody else's trade, and we will tell you that in the first conversation instead of taking the job and working it out later. What we build sits in the office and the yard: who is coming in, what arrived, what was recorded, and what goes back to the customer.
A lot of our seasonal staff speak Spanish. Can the system handle that?
Yes, and it should. An application form, an induction checklist and a shift notice can all run in both languages without doubling the work behind them. Translation is one of the jobs machines genuinely do well. Anything consequential — a disciplinary note, an employment decision — still goes through a person who speaks the language, because a mistranslation there is not a typo, it is a problem.
If we walked away in two years, what would we be taking with us?
All of it. Ask, and grower contracts, lot histories, employee files and audit documentation are handed over as plain CSV and PDF — no proprietary wrapper and no exit fee — with every account having carried your company name since day one. The plants in this town have changed owners more than once. A clean, portable record set is worth more to whoever comes next than any feature list.
The Jaycees run the festival on volunteer time. Is a committee too small for you to bother with?
Not at all, and those builds tend to be tidy: one clear job, a fixed price, and the committee owning the account afterwards. Vendor applications with insurance certificates attached, sponsor commitments recorded where next year's chair can find them, and one place a schedule change is written. No retainer unless you want one.
How much of this is genuinely AI?
Reading a certificate, matching a returning applicant to their old file, and noticing that six trucks are about to arrive in the same twenty minutes — those are real jobs for a model. Counting cases, printing a roster and adding up a settlement are not. Where plain software is the better tool we use it, and you pay less for the honest answer.
We already run accounting and a scheduling package. Do we have to replace them?
Almost never. Most plants and suppliers here have something that works for the ledger and something that works for shifts. We connect to what is there and build only the missing piece. Ripping out a working system to make room for ours is expensive for you and lazy for us.
Are you close enough to actually turn up?
We are an Illinois team working the corridor from Champaign-Urbana up through Danville and across to Peoria, so Hoopeston is a drive rather than a flight. The visit that matters is the first one, where we walk the process with you rather than ask you to describe it on a call. We sign an NDA before that meeting if you want one.