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Manufacturing AI agent · Connected worker

Connected-Worker Knowledge Copilot AI Agent

Put the work instruction or changeover guide approved for that line, product and revision in front of the worker in their language, and capture what they solve as a candidate an owner approves.

Typical delivery
4–6 weeks
Deployment
Your stack
Who approves
Document owner
After launch
Agent Care

What this agent does

Serves what is approved, captures what is not

In

  1. 01

    Take the question as the worker asks it, at the station, in their language, with the work order they are on.

  2. 02

    Resolve what they are actually running — line, machine variant, product, and the revision in force for it.

Reason

  1. 03

    Retrieve the approved instruction, changeover guide, setting sheet or quality standard for that combination.

  2. 04

    Prefer the plant's own standard over a general or vendor source, and say when the two answer differently.

  3. 05

    Pull past solutions recorded against this line and product, each with the owner who approved it and when.

Decide

  1. 06

    Stop where the approved content stops, and where the worker's own competency record does not reach.

  2. 07

    Hold anything no approved document covers as a question for the owner, rather than answering around it.

Out

  1. 08

    Show the passage with the document, revision and date it came from, in the language the worker asked in.

  2. 09

    File what a worker solved as a candidate — not as standard — and route it to whoever owns that procedure.

Product statement

The agent retrieves what is approved and in force, and captures candidates for review. A document owner decides what becomes standard, and a supervisor owns what a worker is authorised to do.

Example workflow

One question, end to end

  1. 1Question askedAt the station, in the worker's language — typed, spoken, or scanned from the work order in front of them
  2. 2Line and product resolvedLine, machine variant, product, work order and the document revision in force for that combination today
  3. 3Approved content retrievedWork instruction, changeover guide, setting sheet, quality standard and past solutions approved for that line
  4. 4Authorisation readThe task checked against the worker's own competency record and what the plant lets that role do unsupervised

No human action required

Stages 1 to 4 run without a person in the loop — the line, the revision in force and the worker's own authorisation are resolved before anything is shown. A question no approved document covers ends that stretch on the spot.

5DecisionSplits on whether approved content covers the question at the revision in force
Covered by content in force

The passage is shown with its source.

Not covered, or past their authorisation

Goes to the owner or the supervisor.

Document owner or supervisor

The owner decides whether a captured solution becomes standard. The supervisor decides what that worker is authorised to do.

Approve · Amend · Reject

Approved — handed back

  1. 6Answer shown, candidate filedThe passage with its document, revision and date; anything the worker worked out goes to the owner as a candidate
  2. 7Outcome evaluatedWhat the owner approved or rejected, what a native speaker corrected, and which answers were served off a stale revision

Rejections

What the owner rejects, and the reason, is counted in the evaluation.

What should not run autonomously

Human approval stays in control

Outside the boundary — human approval required

8 items

  • Publishing captured knowledge as an approved standard.
    • Revising a work instruction, recipe or setpoint.
    • Retiring, superseding or reinstating a revision.
    • Deciding what a worker is authorised to do.

  • Automation boundary

    Agent acts unaided

    • ✓Resolve the line, machine variant, product and revision in force.
    • ✓Retrieve approved content and quote the passage it came from.
    • ✓Show it in the worker's language beside the source it was taken from.
    • ✓File what a worker solved as a candidate and route it to the owner.

    The agent writes candidates and questions to your document system, never the standard itself. Usage stays aggregate.

    • Signing a competency assessment or training record.
    • Releasing a translation of a safety-critical instruction.
    • Granting an exception to an approved procedure.
  • Changing who sees usage data, and at what grain.

Example output

One question at the station, annotated

Everything the agent shows is tied to the line it was asked on and the revision in force there at the time.

Answer output · one question

Illustrative example
Worker asked
Seal fails after the changeover
Running
Line 4, product B
Asked in
Polish, spoken
Answered from
Changeover guide, rev 9
Confidence
93%
Usage recorded
Line and shift, not the person

As received

The question in the worker's own words, and the line and product the work order says they are running.

Evidence used

  • Rev 9, in force on line 4
  • Changeover guide, product B
  • One approved fix here

Why this and not the vendor manual

The builder's manual says otherwise. The plant's own standard is what governs here.

What the score decides

Confidence decides whether it is shown or goes to the owner, never what a worker may do.

Action

ApproveAmendReject

Value

Where AI adds value

The same four claims, placed at the point in the workflow where each one applies.

Where the value lands

Value 01 – 04

Every question at the station

Typed, spoken or scanned from the work order

03Retrieve & capture

Answer from this line's own standard

Use the instruction, changeover guide and setting sheet approved for that line, product and revision — not a general source that reads close enough.

01Approved path

Put the revision in force in their hands

The passage that governs this line today reaches the station in the worker's language, instead of a folder, a laminated sheet of unknown age, or whoever happens to be nearby.

02Human review

Send what is new to the document owner

A fix nobody has written down reaches the person who owns that procedure, with the evidence behind it, rather than spreading between shifts as a habit.

04

Build an evidence trail

Retain the question as asked, the documents and revisions served, the language shown, the capture, the owner's decision and the reason for a rejection — on both paths.

Integrations

Typical integrations

Five system groups connect to the same agent. Which of them are in scope is decided in discovery.

  • Document control

    • Teamcenter
    • Windchill
    • SAP DMS
    • Controlled instruction libraries

  • MES & production context

    • Siemens Opcenter
    • Rockwell FactoryTalk
    • Work orders
    • product and revision in run

  • Competency & training records

    • SuccessFactors
    • Workday
    • LMS records
    • skills matrices

Agent

Connected-worker knowledge

  • Resolves the line
  • Serves the revision
  • Captures candidates

  • Capture & workflow

    • Handover notes
    • andon records
    • Change requests
    • ticketing

  • Observability & evaluation

    • OpenTelemetry
    • Langfuse
    • Supported monitoring/evaluation sources

Integration availability depends on the client's existing systems and API access.

Agent controls

Six layers between the model and the person on the line

Each control wraps the one inside it. An answer clears every layer before a worker reads it, and your document control and competency rules sit outside all six.

L6 · Outermost — last line of defence

Inward → L1 · closest to the model

L6Rollback / safe modeFall back to your document system and your supervisors if signals degrade.Roll back
L5Usage-data limitUsage is reported by line, shift and content, not as a measure of a named worker.Aggregate
L4Owner approval gateCaptured knowledge stays a candidate until the document owner approves it.Gate
L3Authorisation boundaryA task past the worker's competency record is shown as who to call, not as a step.Route
L2Revision and languageThe revision in force on that line, in an approved translation — superseded content is withheld.Withhold
L1Line and product scopeNothing is retrieved until the line, machine variant and product in run match.Match
Model coreAnswer drafted — the passage, the document and revision it came from, and confidence
L1 – L2
Keep the answer on this line and revision
L3
Decides what may be shown as a task
L4 – L5
Owner decides canon, usage stays aggregate
L6
Pulls automation back when signals degrade

How Nestack evaluates it

Evaluate what was served — not only whether it read well.

Coverage runs the whole depth of the workflow, and every layer is cut by slice.

Surface — the passage the worker reads

  1. E1Final-output evaluationWas the passage the one in force for that line and product?
  2. E2Retrieval evaluationRight variant, right revision, and the plant's standard ahead of a general one?
  3. E3Translation fidelityDoes a native speaker read the safety-critical passage the same way?
  4. E4Authorisation boundaryDid it stop where the worker's competency record stops?
  5. E5Slice evaluationHow does accuracy change by language, shift and line?
  6. E6Business outcomeWhat share of captures were approved, and why were the rest rejected?

Floor — the job done to the standard in force

Failure modes

Where each failure originates in the agent

Seven failure modes plotted against the five stages of the agent lifecycle. None of them changes a standard on its own — a document owner approves what becomes canonical, and a supervisor owns what a worker may do. If one gets through and parts have already been made to the wrong instruction, the line is stopped, the material made since that answer was served is contained under your own non-conformance process, and the record shows which passage was shown, at which revision, to whom and when.

Agent lifecycle

Direction of processing →

  1. 01 · Context

    1 mode

    • KW-01

      Right content, wrong machine

      A variant, tooling or product option this line does not run.

    Stage resolves

    The line, the variant, the product and the language

  2. 02 · Retrieval

    2 modes

    • KW-02

      Revision checked, not in force

      The document was current; the line was working to an older one.

    • KW-03

      General source, plant differs

      A builder's manual answers where the plant's own standard differs.

    Stage fetches

    The approved content at the revision in force there

  3. 03 · Answer

    2 modes

    • KW-04

      Translation moves the meaning

      A safety-critical instruction reads differently in the second language.

    • KW-05

      Past what the worker may do

      Guidance runs on into a task their competency record does not cover.

    Stage shows

    The passage, its source and where the worker stops

  4. 04 · Capture

    1 mode

    • KW-06

      Workaround captured as standard

      A shortcut that worked once is promoted without an owner reading it.

    Stage files

    What a worker solved, as a candidate for the owner

  5. 05 · Governance

    1 mode

    • KW-07

      Usage read as a person's output

      Adoption data becomes a ranking of named workers by shift.

    Stage tracks

    Approvals, rejections, revisions and who sees usage

  • Sev-1 · work is done to the wrong standard
  • Sev-2 · a workaround becomes the standard
  • Sev-3 · the floor stops asking for it
See the complete Manufacturing failure-mode catalogue

Affected slices

The people with the most questions get the worst answers

A worker who has run this product for years, in the plant's own language, on a revision that has not moved, gets clean answers. Someone in their second week, reading a second language, on the line that changed on Tuesday, does not.

Slice performance — reported separately, not only in aggregate

Illustrative example
SliceFailure rateLiftLift vs. thresholdStatus
Non-primary-language users7.8%3.9×Review
Newly-hired workers5.0%2.5×Review
Recently revised instructions3.5%1.8×Watch
Steady runs, current revision1.2%0.6×Normal

Bar: wrong-or-superseded-answer rate vs. steady-run baseline · scale 0–4.0× · tick marks 2.0×

2 of 4 slices over threshold

Evidence-linked improvement

A rejected candidate is worth as much as an approved one

What the owner turned down, and why, is the record that stops the same workaround being captured again and worked to next shift.

Improvement cycle · five stages

Switchback — the path turns at Improve and returns at Learn

  1. 01

    Detect

    Answers served off a stale revision, rejected captures, or a cohort that stopped asking.

  2. 02

    Diagnose

    Traced to the effective-revision list, the line and product key, the translation or the capture prompt.

  3. 03

    Improve

    The retrieval key, the translation or the instruction itself changes under your document control, with a named approver.

  4. 04

    Verify

    Re-run over stored questions from that line, including every passage a native speaker corrected.

  5. 05

    Learn

    An approved candidate becomes content; a rejected one becomes a case the agent must not serve again.

  6. Learn → Detect

    The return edge. Content becomes standard when the document owner says so — the approval is the change, not the capture.

Typical build scope

Twelve workstreams across six weeks

The build scope read against the delivery timeline. Week structure follows the six-week plan — discovery, content and record access, retrieval and language, evaluation, then capture, approval and handover.

Workstream

Week 1Week 2Week 3Week 4Week 5Week 6

  1. 01Workflow discovery and boundary definition.Week 1
  2. 02Line, product and revision-in-force mapping.Week 1, Week 2
  3. 03Document control and content-source access.Week 1, Week 2
  4. 04Competency and authorisation mapping.Week 2
  5. 05Retrieval by line, product and revision.Week 2, Week 3
  6. 06Plant standard ahead of general sources.Week 3
  7. 07Language delivery and approved translations.Week 3, Week 4
  8. 08Evaluation suite and held-out question sets.Week 4, Week 5
  9. 09Capture workflow and candidate routing.Week 4, Week 5
  10. 10Owner approval and rejection reasons.Week 5
  11. 11Usage reporting agreed with worker reps.Week 5, Week 6
  12. 12Observability, deployment and Agent Care handover.Week 6

12 workstreams · 6 weeks · bar shows the weeks a workstream is active — several run in parallel

Final scope and sequence confirmed in discovery

Engagement tiers

What each tier includes

Rows are the capabilities named in each tier's scope. Higher tiers include everything below them.

Capability✓ in scope · — not at this tierPilotOne line, one product familyProductionProduction document integrationAdvancedMulti-plant / multi-language
Introduced at Pilot
Answers from your own approved content✓✓✓
Line, product and revision-in-force matching✓✓✓
Every answer cited to document and revision✓✓✓
Authorisation read from your training records✓✓✓
Baseline evaluation✓✓✓
Introduced at Production
Capture routed to the document owner—✓✓
Approval and rejection workflow—✓✓
Observability and evaluation—✓✓
Introduced at Advanced
Approved translations and native-speaker review——✓
Aggregate usage reporting agreed with worker reps——✓
Multi-plant and enterprise controls——✓
Build priceFrom $5,000From $8,000Custom quote
Final build price
Confirmed after discovery based on the lines and content types in scope, document-control and MES integrations, the state of your revision and competency records, the languages on the floor and deployment requirements.
Separate from build
Build pricing is separate from recurring Agent Care, which covers managed monitoring, evaluations, incidents and verified improvements after launch.

What we need from you

What you bring, and what we build with it

Each input maps to a piece of build scope and a week in the delivery timeline.

  1. 01Your document control, and who owns each procedure

    Document control and content-source access

    Week 1

  2. 02The revision each line and product is actually working to

    Line, product and revision-in-force mapping

    Week 1

  3. 03Work instructions, changeover guides and setting sheets

    Retrieval by line, product and revision

    Week 2

  4. 04Competency records, and what each role may do unsupervised

    Competency and authorisation record mapping

    Week 2

  5. 05The languages and reading levels on your floor

    Language delivery and approved translations

    Week 3

  6. 06Questions your operators actually ask, with the right answers

    Evaluation suite, held-out question sets and failure-mode testing

    Week 4

  7. 07A named document owner and your worker representatives

    Approval workflow, and the usage reporting you agree with them

    Weeks 5–6

Nothing else is required

Deployment, documentation and Agent Care handover are ours.

Delivery timeline

Four phases across six weeks

Phases are drawn over the weeks they actually occupy. Week 5 carries both the held-out question sets and the first questions asked from the floor.

Phase

W1

W2

W3

W4

W5

W6

  1. DiscoveryW1
  2. BuildW2 – W3
  3. EvaluateW4 – W5
  4. Pilot & LaunchW5 – W6

Week focus

W1Workflow discovery, document owners and the revision-in-force list

W2Content-source access, competency records and retrieval by line

W3Plant-standard precedence, language delivery and approved translations

W4Evaluation suite, held-out questions and native-speaker translation review

W5Capture and approval workflow, and the first questions from the floor

W6Operators ask live on one line, usage reporting agreed, then Agent Care starts

Reading the band
Safety-critical passages are read back by a native speaker in week 4, before a worker sees one in week 5. A translation nobody checked is the one that hurts someone.
At the end of W6
Workers have asked real questions on one line, a document owner has approved or rejected every candidate captured, and the usage report has been agreed with your worker representatives.
Duration
Six-week plan shown · typical delivery 4–6 weeks depending on scope confirmed in discovery.

Next step · Manufacturing AI agent

Build a knowledge copilot around your own document control.

Show us one line, the instructions and changeover guides that govern it, and the revision each is on today. We'll answer your operators' own questions from your own content, show which revision each answer came from, and put every capture in front of the person who owns that procedure.

Typical delivery
4–6 weeks
Deployment
Your document and MES stack
Who approves
The document owner, always
After launch
Agent Care available

Nestack Agents · Connected-worker knowledge

AGT-MFG-12 · Agent Care available after launch

Build a knowledge copilot

Four questions so the call starts from your actual setup — then pick a time that suits you.

About you
Your setup

No obligation. We’ll map the workflow, name the automation boundary and tell you if an agent is the wrong answer.