AI consulting for manufacturing companies, starting with the office, not the floor.
I set AI up for manufacturers of 50 to 250 people, for the folks at desks: quoting, purchasing, scheduling, quality paperwork, work instructions and the customer inbox. The data rules for drawings and customer files get written before anyone gets a seat. Every price is on this page.
I don't sell machine vision, predictive maintenance or an ERP. I get the general assistant your office already pays for doing real work, safely, and train the people who use it.
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Justin McKelvey
AI consultant · 15 years building products · Austin, TX
Quick Answer
Justin McKelvey is an AI consultant in Austin, Texas who helps manufacturing companies of about 50 to 250 people roll out ChatGPT, Claude or Copilot to their office staff, at published prices: a $2,500 AI Readiness Assessment (two weeks, a written roadmap), then a done-for-you rollout (from $4,500, about two weeks, training and 30 days of support included). The first 30-minute call is free. At a 100-person plant, year one for 25 desk seats and the rollout comes to about $10,500. Defense suppliers check one DFARS rule before covered defense information touches any cloud tool.
Author: Justin McKelvey · Prices as of October 2026
Who can help a 100-person manufacturer roll out AI?
Someone who asks who signed your customer NDAs before opening a demo. I start there. I work with owners and leaders of $1M to $50M businesses and set AI up for teams of 10 to 200, which at a plant this size means the office, not the line. The work is usually two steps. First a $2,500 AI Readiness Assessment: two weeks, a written roadmap of which jobs go first, which plan fits, and the never-paste list for drawings, pricing and anything export-controlled. Then a done-for-you AI implementation on the tool your office already uses (from $4,500, about two weeks, training and 30 days of support included). Start the rollout within 90 days and the $2,500 is credited in full. The first step is a free 30-minute call.
Right now
Right now I'm helping a national trade association roll out AI to about 50 staff.
Multi-plant companies, or a rollout that reaches the floor (tablets at workstations, shift handoffs, maintenance logs), get a written custom scope after the Assessment, priced to the work. The published prices are where most companies start, not a ceiling.
What AI consulting costs a manufacturer
Quoted the way you'd want a job quoted, fixed and in writing: $2,500 for a written AI plan, from $4,500 for a done-for-you rollout, or $397 for a self-paced course.
Strategy call
$0
30 min
A straight answer on what's worth doing first. No pitch.
AI Readiness Assessment
$2,500 flat
2 weeks
A 15 to 25 page written roadmap with governance and data-handling guidance, and a 1-hour walkthrough. Credited in full against an install within 90 days.
AI Team Rollout
from $4,500
~2 weeks
Claude, ChatGPT Business, or Copilot installed for your office, with training and 30 days of support. $1,500 deposit, applied to the invoice.
The Shop
$397
self-paced
8-lesson Claude course. Teams: +$97 per teammate, 2 to 25 people. 30-day money-back.
| Service | Price | Timeline | What you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Strategy call | $0 | 30 min | A straight answer on what's worth doing first. No pitch. |
| AI Readiness Assessment | $2,500 flat | 2 weeks | A 15 to 25 page written roadmap with governance and data-handling guidance, and a 1-hour walkthrough. Credited in full against an install within 90 days. |
| AI Team Rollout | from $4,500 | ~2 weeks | Claude, ChatGPT Business, or Copilot installed for your office, with training and 30 days of support. $1,500 deposit, applied to the invoice. |
| The Shop | $397 | self-paced | 8-lesson Claude course. Teams: +$97 per teammate, 2 to 25 people. 30-day money-back. |
Prices as of October 2026. Seats for the AI tool are paid to Anthropic, OpenAI, or Microsoft, separately. Every rung, side by side with the rest of my services, is on AI consulting services.
Year one at a 100-person plant, with the math shown
Start with who actually sits at a keyboard. In a typical 100-person plant that's maybe 25 people: estimators, buyers, the scheduler, quality, HR, supervisors, the front office. That split is my assumption, so swap in your own headcount. The other 75 run machines, and buying them seats on day one is how AI budgets get wasted.
Twenty-five Claude Team seats at $20 each, billed annually, are $6,000 a year. Add a $4,500 rollout (the $2,500 Assessment is credited into it if you start within 90 days) and year one is $10,500.
O*NET puts the 2025 median wage for first-line production supervisors at $35.79 an hour. At that rate, $10,500 is about 293 hours a year across the 25 people, roughly 14 minutes per person per week. That's before benefits and overhead, so the real break-even is lower.
Where do 14 minutes come from? The RFQ that sits in someone's inbox for three days because the estimator is also chasing a late supplier. A first-draft quote response from your own rules and past quotes, checked by the estimator, usually covers the whole plant's math by itself. Year two is just the seats. The AI for manufacturing guide walks through the five office jobs one at a time.
If you make parts for defense: the DFARS rule to clear first
A lot of 100-person shops sit somewhere in a defense supply chain, often two tiers down, and the clause flows down with the purchase order. DFARS 252.204-7012 is the one that decides whether covered defense information can go into a cloud AI tool. Here's how each point in the clause becomes a line in the rollout. This is a plain-language summary of the published clause, not legal or compliance advice; your contracts and your compliance lead decide.
| What DFARS 252.204-7012 says | What it becomes in the rollout |
|---|---|
| A contractor using an outside cloud provider to store, process or transmit covered defense information must make sure the provider meets security requirements equivalent to the FedRAMP Moderate baseline (paragraph (b)(2)(ii)(D)). | A written answer from the AI vendor, for the exact plan you'd buy, before covered defense information goes in. No answer, no upload. Most first workflows never need it. |
| That same provider has to follow the clause's rules on cyber incident reporting, malicious software, media preservation and forensic access. | The vendor goes on your supplier list with what data it can reach, and the AI connections run under the narrowest login that does the job. |
| Cyber incidents are reported "rapidly", which the clause defines as within 72 hours of discovery. | Your incident plan names who reports an AI-tool data mistake and to whom, the same as any other system. |
| The contractor implements NIST SP 800-171 on its own systems. | The AI rollout fits inside the access controls you already run for 800-171. It doesn't get a side door. |
The plan matters even with no defense work at all. Anthropic's pricing page, read October 20, 2026, lists Claude Team ($20 per seat per month billed annually, $25 monthly, 2 to 150 seats) with no model training on your content by default. ChatGPT Business also does not train on business data by default. Ten people quoting from personal accounts is the problem to fix first, and the one-page rule I start from is the AI acceptable use policy.
Which tool? The one your office already lives in
I set up Claude, ChatGPT Business, and Microsoft 365 Copilot, and I pick by where your people already work. Plants that run on Outlook, Excel and Teams usually end up on Copilot for small business. An office already living in ChatGPT means ChatGPT Business. If you want Claude, it's Claude. Same price and timeline for all three.
What I don't do is ERP, MES, CAD or machine-monitoring software. Those come from their vendors and integrators. The Assessment shows where the general assistant stops and a specialist tool earns its seat.
How it runs, and how long it takes
About four weeks of calendar time from plan to trained people: two for the Assessment, about two for the rollout. Supervisors give up roughly three hours in total, not a week of production.
-
1
A free 30-minute call
Which office jobs eat the week, which tools your people already have open, and where drawings and customer files live today. You leave with a straight answer on the next step.
-
2
The Assessment: weeks 1 and 2
A workflow audit, every realistic AI opportunity ranked by impact and effort, tool recommendations for the stack you already pay for, governance and data-handling guidance (NDAs, export-controlled files, defense flow-downs), and a 30-60-90 day plan. A 15 to 25 page roadmap on day 14, with a 1-hour walkthrough.
-
3
The rollout: about 2 weeks
The permission check on whose login each connection runs under, the company context the AI works from, up to 5 tools or sources connected, and one workflow pack. Roughly 3 hours of your time. The rule on every workflow: the AI drafts, a person approves.
-
4
Training and handoff
A training session on the workflows I built, a plain-language handoff doc, then 30 days of support. If something I set up isn't working, I fix it. No extra invoice.
Assessment slots are capped at 2 to 3 a month, so a 2 to 6 week lead time is typical. Already know the job and the tool? Skip step 2.
A free first step
Not ready to talk? The free AI readiness checklist is 30 yes-or-no questions you can answer without an email. Leave one and it saves your score with a recommendation.
Score your AI readiness first.
The AI Readiness Checklist: 30 yes/no questions across data, workflows, team, governance, and execution. You can answer them without an email. Leave one and your score and recommendation are saved.
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“Justin doesn't just write code; he thinks like a CEO. He understands the business impact of every technical decision, which is rare in this industry.”
AI consulting for manufacturers: common questions
- Who is a good AI consultant for a manufacturing company with 100 employees?
- I'd put my hand up. I'm Justin McKelvey, an AI consultant in Austin, Texas, and I work remotely with owners and leaders of $1M to $50M businesses, setting AI up for teams of 10 to 200. At a 100-person plant that usually means the 20 to 30 people at desks: quoting, purchasing, scheduling, quality paperwork, HR and the front office. The order is a $2,500 AI Readiness Assessment (2 weeks, a written roadmap of which jobs go first, which plan fits, and the data rules for drawings and customer files), then a done-for-you rollout of Claude, ChatGPT Business, or Microsoft 365 Copilot (from $4,500, about 2 weeks, training included). The $2,500 is credited in full if the rollout starts within 90 days. The first step is a free 30-minute call at justinmckelvey.com/book/strategy-call.
- How much does AI consulting cost a manufacturer?
- With me, every price is fixed and published: the 30-minute call is free, the AI Readiness Assessment is $2,500 flat, and a rollout starts at $4,500 (range $4,500 to $7,500), with a $1,500 deposit applied in full to the install invoice. The Shop, a self-paced Claude course, is $397 plus $97 per teammate. AI seats are paid to Anthropic, OpenAI, or Microsoft separately, about $20 to $25 per person per month on the business plans.
- Can a defense supplier use ChatGPT or Claude?
- For the office work that has no covered defense information in it, yes, on a business plan. For covered defense information, read your contract first. DFARS 252.204-7012 says a contractor that uses an outside cloud provider to store, process or transmit covered defense information must make sure the provider meets security requirements equivalent to the FedRAMP Moderate baseline and follows the clause's incident-reporting rules. Ask the AI vendor for that in writing for the exact plan you'd buy. Until your firm has it, that information stays out of the tool. I'm not a lawyer or a CMMC assessor; your compliance lead makes that call.
- Do all 100 employees need an AI seat?
- No. Most plants buy seats for the people at desks and leave the floor alone at first. If 25 people quote, buy, schedule, write quality paperwork or answer customers, that's 25 Claude Team seats at $20 a month billed annually, $6,000 a year. Floor workers usually benefit second-hand: faster quotes, cleaner work instructions and fewer missed emails from the office.
- What should a manufacturer automate with AI first?
- One office job with a lot of repeated writing and no controlled data in it. The usual winners are RFQ response drafts from your own rules and past quotes, supplier follow-up emails, first drafts of work instructions and SOPs from a supervisor's notes, and meeting recaps with action items. The AI drafts, a person approves, and nothing customer-controlled leaves your server.
- Do you set up ERP, MES or CAD software?
- No. I set up the general assistants (Claude, ChatGPT Business, and Microsoft 365 Copilot) for the office side of the plant, connected to the files and email you already use. ERP, MES, CAD and machine-monitoring systems come from their vendors and integrators. The Assessment tells you where the general assistant stops and a specialist tool is worth buying.
- Is there a free AI assessment for manufacturers?
- Yes. The free AI readiness checklist at justinmckelvey.com/ai-readiness-checklist is 30 yes-or-no questions you can answer without an email; leave one and it saves your score with a recommendation. The free 30-minute strategy call is the other free first step. The paid AI Readiness Assessment ($2,500) is the written plan.
Sources
- DFARS 252.204-7012, Safeguarding Covered Defense Information and Cyber Incident Reporting, acquisition.gov (read October 20, 2026)
- O*NET OnLine, First-Line Supervisors of Production and Operating Workers (51-1011.00), 2025 median wages (read October 20, 2026)
- Anthropic, Claude pricing, claude.com/pricing (read October 20, 2026)
- OpenAI, ChatGPT Business plan and data terms (read September 12, 2026)
Read more before you decide
Start with a plan, or start with a call.
The Assessment is $2,500 and credited toward a rollout within 90 days. The call is free and takes 30 minutes. I reply to everything within one business day.