What kinds of manufacturing lines do you work on?

Any of them. We work with manufacturers of any size and any industry — food, consumer products, industrial, you name it. If you've got a line, we can look at it.

Do you only do new automation, or do you support existing equipment?

Both. A lot of our work is fixing, maintaining, and getting more out of equipment that's already on your floor — not just selling you something new. If your current setup can be improved without a full overhaul, that's usually where we start.

What is your service area?

Northern Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Southern Maine.

How fast can you get to us in an emergency?

We handle emergency troubleshooting and repair — mechanical, electrical, pneumatic, and hydraulic — and we respond fast when a line is down. Reach out and we'll get you a real timeframe based on where you're located and what's going on.

How does pricing work — project-based, hourly, retainer?

Initial consults and sales calls are free. Engineering and design work is billed at $175/hr, troubleshooting and repair at $150/hr, and travel at $125/hr. Equipment, materials, and consumables are quoted separately based on the job.

Do you offer preventive maintenance programs?

We can, but it's not the core of what we do — we're primarily an on-call resource for when your in-house team is stuck or stretched thin. Scheduled maintenance is available in special cases if that's a better fit for your operation.

What consumables do you supply, and can you match what we currently use?

Labels, tapes, and shrink films, primarily through Decker Tape Products. That covers everything from basic box-sealing tape to hazard labels, pallet protection, and specialty security tape. We can match your current specs or help you source the right product for a new application. Reordering works either on-call or on a subscription schedule.

Can you work around our production schedule so we don't lose runtime?

Yes — that's part of what we plan for during the design phase. We work with you to figure out timing, floor space, and personnel needs before anything gets installed, and phase in bigger changes so you're not stuck shutting the whole line down at once.

What does a typical project look like from first call to running line?

It starts with a site visit — we walk the floor, look at your current process, production speeds, and where you're headed. From there we usually flag quick wins before getting into bigger design work. Once we agree on goals, we move into sourcing equipment, coordinating with vendors, and building anything custom that's needed. Then it's delivery, installation, commissioning, and training your team on the new setup.

Do you build custom machines, or only install off-the-shelf equipment?

Both. We'll always look for the simplest off-the-shelf solution first. But when nothing off-the-shelf solves the problem, we design and build custom equipment to fit.

How long does a custom build take?

It depends. Off-the-shelf integrations tend to move fast. Custom builds involve some R&D, and that part is genuinely variable — some go smoothly, others take a few iterations to get the process right. We'll be upfront with you about where a project stands and won't promise a fixed timeline we can't back up.

What if our product needs to stay "handmade" or keep a certain identity?

We build that into the design requirements from the start. If part of what makes your product special has to stay done by hand, we figure out exactly what that means — what has to stay manual and what can be automated — before we design anything.

Do you help with factory layout, not just individual machines?

Yes — we design the flow of product through your facility, from raw goods coming in to finished product ready to ship. That includes organizing maintenance tool rooms and repair part storage, not just the production line itself.

We're short-staffed and can't find enough help — can automation actually solve that?

Often, yes. A lot of our projects start exactly there — a client can't find enough people to run a manual process, and automating it frees up the staff they do have for higher-value work.

What if we just want to get more out of the equipment we already have?

That's a common starting point. Sometimes it's a simple flow fix — for example, moving product straight from where it's made into packaging instead of dropping it into a bin that then has to be re-sorted. Small changes like that can meaningfully increase throughput without buying new equipment.

Do you require a deposit or commitment before starting design work?

Yes — once we've done the initial site visit and identified quick wins and design goals, we need a financial commitment to move into detailed design, sourcing, and custom build work.

What size manufacturer do you typically work with?

Our sweet spot is 10 to 250 line employees, but we work with smaller shops that are growth-minded and larger operations too — even if they've got some in-house capability already.

Who typically reaches out to you — do we need to already know exactly what we need?

Not at all. We hear from CEOs, plant managers, operations managers, maintenance managers, and sometimes safety or HR staff dealing with an ergonomic or hazard issue. You don't need a fully scoped project — a lot of engagements start with 'something's not working right' or 'we think there's a better way to do this.'

Will bringing in automation mean cutting jobs?

Not necessarily — a lot of our projects are about freeing up staff for higher-value work, not replacing them, especially for manufacturers who are already struggling to find enough labor. Worth talking through your specific situation so we can be straight with you about what a project would actually mean for your team.

How do we know this will actually pay off?

Fair question, and not one we'll dodge. We can walk through the numbers with you — current costs, expected efficiency gains, and a realistic timeline — before you commit to anything. The initial consult is free specifically so you can get real answers before spending anything.

Why Do You Need Written Operating, Setup, and Maintenance Procedures for Every Machine? (Part 1 of 3)

Name: AutoIC LLC
Telephone: 603-748-6216
Price range: $$

Part 1 of a 3-part series: why 'ask Dave, he knows how it runs' is a risk, and how written operating, setup, and maintenance procedures keep your line running when Dave isn't there.

Ken deAlmeida

10/13/20265 min read

Part 1 of 3. This one is the overview. Part 2 covers putting procedures to work to keep your line running, and Part 3 covers what they mean when you're preparing to sell or go public.

Short answer: because if the only way to run, set up, or fix a machine is knowing the right person, your line is one vacation, one retirement, or one night-shift emergency away from stopping. Written procedures turn what's in somebody's head into something anyone qualified can follow, the same way, every time. They aren't paperwork for paperwork's sake. They're how you keep a plant running when your best people aren't standing next to the machine.

What are we actually talking about?

Three different documents, and each one does a different job:

Operating instructions — how to start, run, monitor, and shut down the machine safely, including what normal looks like and what to do when it isn't.
Setup and changeover procedures — how to get the machine ready for a given product or format: what to adjust, in what order, and what to confirm before running.
Maintenance procedures — what gets inspected, lubricated, adjusted, or replaced, how often, with what tools, and what "done right" looks like.

All three fall under the same idea: a standard operating procedure is a documented, step-by-step set of instructions for carrying out a routine task the same way every time (Fabrico). Setup, changeover, and preventive maintenance are three of the most common places plants put them to work (Harmoni).

What happens when none of it is written down?

Quality and uptime start depending on who shows up that day. That's the plain way to put it, and it matches how maintenance-focused sources describe plants without documented procedures (OxMaint).

A university study of one production department tracked a growing trend of human errors that caused real downtime on its lines. After analyzing twelve months of error data, the conclusion was that SOPs were missing for multiple activities, and the ones that did exist lacked important detail. The result was that new-employee training and the way regular operators did their jobs were inconsistent and unreliable (UW-Stout thesis, 2020). Nobody on that floor was careless. There just wasn't a standard to follow.

That's the pattern we see in the field too. The machine isn't the problem. The knowledge about it is stuck with one or two people.

Why does this matter most for setup and changeover?

Because setup is where small, undocumented differences turn into scrap, jams, and lost hours. Two operators can set up the same machine two different ways and both think theirs is right. Written setup procedures settle that, especially when they include annotated photos or visual references for anything where position and orientation matter (Harmoni). A picture of where a guide rail sits for a specific case size beats a paragraph describing it.

Standardizing setup, quality checkpoints, and changeover protocols is also one of the main reasons maintenance and operations teams invest in written procedures in the first place, along with shorter technician training time and less downtime (MaintainX).

What do written maintenance procedures actually protect?

Your equipment, your people, and your ability to find problems early. A maintenance procedure defines what gets done, by whom, with what tools, under what safety conditions, and to what completion standard (OxMaint). Without that, preventive maintenance turns into "I think someone greased that last month."

Written procedures also create something you can measure against. Once a standard is documented, deviations become visible, and without a defined standard there's nothing to compare actual performance to (Harmoni). If a line keeps stopping at the same point, a written procedure makes it much easier to see whether the machine is the problem or the way it's being run or maintained.

Safety is part of this too. Lockout/tagout is a good example of a procedure that's OSHA-mandated rather than optional (Harmoni). Every machine with stored energy needs its own written steps, not a general reminder to "be careful."

What makes a procedure actually get used?

Specific, short, and written for the person standing at the machine. The biggest failure is vague language. "Ensure proper setup" tells nobody anything. A good procedure states what the operator checks, adjusts, confirms, and records (DocuWriter). A few practical rules:

Write steps as actions. "Set the left guide to 4 inches and lock it down," not "adjust guides as needed."
List the tools and materials. If a specific wrench, gauge, or part number matters, say so.
Use photos where position matters. Annotated pictures of the actual machine beat generic diagrams.
Keep it at the machine. Procedures historically lived in heavy binders in a manager's office (Fabrico). If an operator has to walk to the office to read it, it won't get read.
Build it with the people who run the machine. Operators and technicians know where the real steps and the real gotchas are.

What about procedures that go out of date?

This is where most plants quietly fail. A setup changes, maintenance swaps a component, a guard gets modified, and the document no longer matches the machine. Once the plant changes faster than the paperwork, the document stops being trustworthy, and new hires go back to learning tribal knowledge instead of the approved method (DocuWriter).

The fix isn't complicated. Treat the procedure as part of the machine. Any time you change the machine, change the paper, and review each procedure on a set schedule even when nothing seems to have changed. A short, accurate procedure beats a long, outdated one every time.

Where should a plant start if almost nothing is written down?

Don't try to document everything at once. Make a list of the machines and tasks with no written procedure, then rank them by how often they fail, how risky they are, and how much they'd hurt if the one person who knows them was out (OxMaint). Then work down the list:

Start with your bottleneck machine and anything with a safety risk.
Write the setup procedure first. That's usually where the most variation hides.
Add a short daily or weekly maintenance checklist next.
Put operating instructions at the machine, with photos.
Review each one after the first few real uses and fix what the operators say is wrong.

This lines up with the same one-step-at-a-time approach we recommend for automation projects. Pick the place it'll hurt most if it fails, fix that, and build from there.

How does AutoIC approach this?

When a machine gets installed, commissioned, and handed over, operator training is part of the job, and written instructions are what make training stick after we leave the building. It's also where our troubleshooting work and our maintenance support meet. When we're called in at 2 a.m. for a line that's down, the fastest fixes are always on the machines where somebody wrote down how it's supposed to run. And when we're on the floor for a layout or workflow project, undocumented machines are one of the first things we flag, along with where tools and repair parts live.

What's AutoIC's take on this?

A plant doesn't need a binder the size of a phone book. It needs the right three pages next to the right machine: how to run it, how to set it up, and how to keep it healthy. Keep It Super Simple applies here too. If a procedure is too long to use at the machine, it's too long. The plants that recover fastest from a bad night are the ones where the knowledge doesn't walk out the door at 3 p.m. with one person.

Next up: Part 2 shows how to put these procedures to work so your line keeps running when something breaks.

If you've got a machine that only one person really knows how to run or fix, that's the one to start with. Check out our FAQ for more on how we support equipment after install, or get in touch and we'll help you figure out where to begin.

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ken@autoicllc.com

603-748-6216