AI is moving into UK manufacturing faster than most operations know how to assess it. We help you map where it fits across the floor and the back office, and build bespoke systems where the work calls for it. Across SME manufacturers, lighting and electronics OEMs, automotive Tier 1 and Tier 2 suppliers, logistics operators and asset-heavy industrials.
OpenKit helps UK manufacturers, industrial OEMs, automotive Tier 1 and Tier 2 suppliers, logistics operators and asset-heavy industrials work out where AI fits across the floor and the back office and builds bespoke systems where the work calls for it. Delivery is designed to help meet the customer's own obligations under UK health-and-safety and industrial-cybersecurity regimes. OpenKit holds ISO 27001, ISO 9001, and Cyber Essentials certifications.
OpenKit is a UK AI consulting firm that helps manufacturers, industrial OEMs, automotive Tier 1 and Tier 2 suppliers, logistics operators, and asset-heavy industrials work out where AI fits across their operations and builds bespoke systems where the work calls for it. OpenKit delivers predictive maintenance and telemetry reporting, document and specification automation, private knowledge systems over engineering archives, and internal support copilots shaped to each firm's own stack and data-residency posture. OpenKit has ISO 27001, ISO 9001, and Cyber Essentials certifications and works with clients across the United Kingdom from a base in Cambridge.
Four patterns we see in every manufacturing audit. Each one is also why most off-the-shelf AI rollouts stall on the way to a board report, regardless of who in the team is running the work.
The buyer is too small for QuantumBlack and too large for an AI strategy webinar. 71% of UK large manufacturers apply AI, only 28% of SMEs do, and the gap has not closed in the year since the Make UK / Autodesk survey.
Years of SCADA, MES and time-series data that an engineering team can read and a board cannot. Predictive maintenance work stalls because the artefact at the end is still a dashboard, not the recommendation the person reading the report is paid to make.
Connected fitting estates, pipeline integrity audits, methodology IP. All under data residency and confidentiality contracts that rule out default-to-OpenAI architectures before the design conversation starts.
The judgement step at the centre of every regulated audit or specification review, a senior consultant cross-referencing a framework against thousands of pages of evidence, is not in any document. Off-the-shelf assistants cannot be trusted with it.
These are the areas that come up most often in manufacturing audits. We don't ship them off the shelf. Every implementation is shaped to your team, your stack, and what is safe to defend on the floor and at the next board report.
Time-series data the team already collects in SCADA, MES, or a proprietary time-series database. Every figure is computed in code; the model writes the narrative around verified numbers, and every call is logged.
Assistants that answer questions from your own materials (drawings, BOMs, datasheets, customer specs, internal procedures, prior audit findings) and cite where every answer came from. Runs inside your controlled environment so the content and the queries never leave it.
Customer specifications, RFQ responses, supplier risk assessments, and BOM cross-checks shaped around the existing ERP (SAP, Dynamics 365, NetSuite, Epicor) rather than replacing it. Every automated step lands in a queue a person still signs off.
Technical Q&A across product manuals, service histories, and prior tickets becomes the most useful internal copilot a field engineer or support team will ever use. Routes low-confidence to a human.
A telemetry-into-board-report assistant. Reads a month of occupancy data across a large connected lighting estate and turns it into a three-tier report a board, a facilities manager, or a department head can read. We shape work like this around your existing workflow rather than ship it off the shelf.
Work shaped like this for manufacturing follows a consistent shape. The model never autoreplies, never publishes a number it computed itself, never makes a safety-critical decision. Python pre-computes every figure, the model writes narrative around verified numbers, and every model call is traced.
Most engagements start with the audit. What follows depends on what it surfaces. Many teams move into a transformation block on their existing SCADA, MES and ERP estate, some take on a senior AI lead to keep the work moving, and a few commission a bespoke build where nothing off-the-shelf will fit.
A fixed-fee, fixed-scope audit of where AI fits across the shop floor, the supply chain and the back office. Ends with a written report you can take to a board or hand to an internal engineering team, and a prioritised rollout plan.
A block of configuration, build and training on your existing SCADA, MES and ERP estate. The team that runs the audit is the team that ships the work, so nothing gets lost between findings and delivery.
A senior OpenKit engineer becomes part of your team. Not an advisor attending steering committees, an engineer in the codebase, taking on the audit-log review and the next quarter's roadmap. Rolling arrangement, cancel anytime.
For work that goes beyond configuration. A three-tier telemetry reporting platform, a private knowledge engine over the engineering archive, a pipeline integrity audit copilot on client-controlled infrastructure. Scoped after the audit, since the scope depends on what the audit surfaces.
We build on top of the data plane you already operate. No rip-and-replace. Below is a sample of what we routinely integrate with. We work across many other systems too, so bring us your stack.
A sample of recent work. Outcomes described without internal artefacts.
What we hold and what we operate to. We surface gaps and propose mitigations. We are not a regulatory certifying body.
Information security management. Independent third-party audited.
Quality management. Independent third-party audited.
UK NCSC baseline cyber-hygiene certification.
Data processing register maintained per ICO guidance.
We hold ISO 27001, ISO 9001, and Cyber Essentials certifications independently, and operate to UK GDPR. We are not a notified body and we do not self-certify against any sector-specific framework. Delivery is designed to help the customer meet their own obligations under the UK regulatory regimes that apply to their operation. Risk-assessment ownership remains with the employer, and we work alongside your regulatory leads at audit and certification.
Start with the audit. Fixed fee, fixed scope, a written report you can take to a board or hand to an internal engineering team, and a prioritised plan for what to build first.
Rethinking What's Possible with AI.
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contact@openkit.co.uk
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