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True North Solutions · Lean Digital Intelligence

Turn a Gemba walk into an AI-ready skill file

A Gemba walk is how you see the unwritten playbook — the workarounds, exceptions, and tribal knowledge no SOP fully captures. Paste or upload the SOP behind that process and you'll get back a structured Markdown "skill file" — the same format we use to train AI agents on a client's real procedures — with the steps, exceptions, a Lean waste scan, and the one point in the process that still needs a human on the ground. Free preview below; the full file downloads once you tell us where to send it.

See it on a real SOP first

Five pre-run examples across common back-office and shop-floor processes — pick one to see the full output instantly, no waiting on generation.

Or convert your own SOP

PDF, Word, or plain text.
Takes around a minute. Nothing is stored until you unlock the download.

Why a skill file — why not just read the SOP and walk the floor

1. An SOP isn't written for a machine — this is the translationYour SOP tells a trained person what to do and trusts them to fill every gap with judgment nobody wrote down. An AI agent has none of that judgment. Something has to make the implicit explicit — this is that step, not extra paperwork.
2. A Gemba walk produces knowledge in a person's head; this produces an asset you ownIf we just walk the floor and configure your AI from what we saw, the reasoning behind it lives with us. A skill file is inspectable, versionable, and yours — readable by your compliance team, a new hire, or your next AI vendor.
3. The walk still happens — this makes it 10x more targetedConverting the SOP first does the mechanical work for free in under two minutes. What is left for the actual Gemba walk is confirming the specific ambiguous items flagged in the conversion — not documenting the whole process from a blank page.
4. It surfaces real value before any AI decision gets madeThe waste flags a conversion turns up are findings about how the process runs today, independent of whether an agent ever gets deployed. Even a "not now" on AI still walks away with a legitimate process finding.

What happens after this .md file exists

1. Gemba confirmationTNS walks this skill file against how the process actually runs on the floor or in the system — not just what the SOP says — and resolves every open item flagged in the conversion.
2. Exception calibrationWe add the real edge cases your team handles today that never made it into the written SOP — the ones that live in one person's head.
3. Load into your agent platformThe finalized skill file becomes the instruction set your AI agent (Claude, an internal tool, whatever you run) is trained or prompted on for this specific procedure.
4. Shadow testThe agent runs against 10-20 real historical cases side by side with a human before it touches a live case.
5. Wire in the Gemba GateThe human checkpoint identified in the conversion is built in as a mandatory approval step — the agent proposes, a person confirms, only then does it execute.
6. Repeat across your process listBecause the methodology is standardized, each additional SOP converts faster than the last — this is what the 30-Day AI Sprint compresses into a single engagement.

What this initiative is actually worth to the business

Faster AI rollout, at falling marginal costOnce the methodology is standardized, converting your 10th SOP takes a fraction of what the 1st did — the cost curve bends down as you scale across processes.
One version of the truth, not tribal knowledgeEvery agent — and every new hire — is trained against the same documented procedure, instead of however the most experienced person on shift happens to do it.
Waste surfaces before AI even enters the pictureConversions typically turn up rework loops, redundant approvals, and manual re-entry worth fixing on their own — AI adoption becomes the forcing function for cleanup you were going to need anyway.
Governed autonomy, not a black boxThe Gemba Gate means leadership can point to the exact place accountability sits in every automated procedure — the answer to "what happens when it gets it wrong" is designed in, not an afterthought.
Directional, based on how TNS engagements typically play out — the specific numbers for your operation depend on which processes you start with and how much variance exists in how they run today. That is exactly what the five-day assessment or the 30-Day AI Sprint puts a real figure on.
Your skill file will appear here.
Upload or paste an SOP to begin.
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