Three layers, built in the right order
Paul framed this as a hierarchy. The brain is the foundation and the biggest long-term prize. Connections let the team keep living in Innergy. Tools sit on top as the visible quick wins. We mix a fast, satisfying win with the slow background build of the knowledge base.
The Brain
Knowledge base & information portalOne place to capture, share and find the right information at the right time - out of Paul's head, out of SOPs, checklists, supplier docs and technical manuals. Now multimodal (text, drawings, photos and even video), answerable on a phone or tablet on site, by voice.
The Connections
Innergy · OneDrive · Cabinet Vision · Woodman · XeroInnergy is home, but key things live outside it - the production forms and selections in OneDrive, drawings in Cabinet Vision - and they drift out of sync. The prize is one source of truth, with everything flowing back into Innergy. Innergy's APIs are confirmed, so this moved up the list this week.
The Tools
Generate, guide & automatePurpose-built tools that take work off the plate - the pricing calculator, the specification and production-form generator, plus guided workflows like automated project-management prompts and how-to guides, so the right step happens without anyone having to remember it.
We deliver against pain and impact, not strictly top-to-bottom. The roadmap mixes a visible quick win with the long build underneath.
Priorities, in order
Ranked by impact against effort, with the MBIE subsidy targeting the highest-value items first. Tap any item to expand the detail. Nothing here is locked - we rank your wish list together. The starred item is what Session 2 pointed to as the build we'd start with, because it cuts across all three layers at once.
Specification + Production Form tool
Session 2's focus - now rated equal to the pricing calculator, and it shows off all three layers at onceThe pain
- Selections get entered more than once - a Word or Innergy spec, then re-keyed into the production-form Excel - and things fall through the cracks, so upsells and mods get missed.
- Notes on the Cabinet Vision drawings drift out of date and contradict the production-form Excel, so people act on the wrong version - real, live right now on two jobs (range, model and delivery-timing mix-ups).
- It's the bottleneck between office and factory: the factory can't be released until the final selections are confirmed. As Cameron put it, the calculator has a workaround - this doesn't.
What we'd build
- Capture the client's selections once, with guided checkbox input - tick the option used and the rest fall away. Faster, less labour, quicker proposals out.
- One capture flows to all three places - the client specification, the final drawings, and the production form - so they're always consistent. Notes can stay on drawings only for fabrication detail, never for selections.
- Out comes a polished, client-facing specification (the sales tool) and a populated production form - the single source of truth for detailing and the project manager.
- Draws on reference defaults as it goes (e.g. standard timber selections), so it quietly leans on the Brain - a Tool, a Connection and the Brain in one.
The Lee Brothers Brain · "Ask Lee"
The highest pain and the foundation - Paul's knowledge, captured and searchable by everyoneThe pain
- Thirty years of knowledge sits with one person - everyone comes to Paul, work stalls when he's away more than three days.
- Two kinds of question: technical knowledge, and sign-off judgement ("is this good enough?").
- It's a succession and resilience risk, not just a daily inconvenience.
What we'd build
- Pull from the knowledge that already exists - emails to builders and architects, SOPs and manuals in OneDrive, drawings and specs - plus Innergy and Xero, all queryable in plain language via MCP (a smart search, not exact-match).
- Start with a base layer that could handle a large share of Paul's everyday queries, getting better each month as the team feeds it - in the palm of their hand, like ChatGPT or Claude but trained on Lee Brothers.
- Governed by a couple of champions and light protocols, so it captures the agreed Lee Brothers Way rather than conflicting versions, with audience-aware answers that match how Paul already tailors things.
Pricing Calculator
The quick win alongside - confidence for non-joiners, revenue we're currently losingThe pain
- Small jobs ($2k-$5k, three or four a month) stall, fall to the bottom of the pile and walk when we can't quote quickly.
- Garbage in, garbage out - non-joiners don't know nominal timber sizes or wastage, so a square-metre slip burns the margin fast.
- Fear paralysis: a quote looks too high or too low, nobody trusts it, so it waits for Paul to run his eye over it.
What we'd build
- Rebuild Paul's doors-and-windows Excel calculator as a clean, guided tool - the logic is sound, the interface is the blocker.
- Guardrails and AI prompts at the fields people get wrong (timber sizing, wastage) so quotes can be trusted without Paul.
- A base specification to unstick non-joiners - without a starting point they get stumped in Woodman and can't price at all. Even "use finger-jointed pine for the frames" lets them push on.
- Flags scope they'd miss ("that's a sink cabinet, allow for a double skin"; "American white oak veneer needs coating - have you allowed for it?"), so a near-newbie can price from an Innergy take-off accurately.
- Outputs a price plus gross profit per hour - the numbers you already want to see, just friendlier.
- Fast enough to qualify a job on the spot - many "quick" small jobs are really a day-plus at $200/hr, and quick numbers let the team say yes or no while the customer is still keen.
System Connections
Keep the team living in Innergy - Woodman and Xero flowing inThe pain
- Innergy is the home system, but it isn't always the natural place for everything.
- Woodman (timber joinery) lives outside Innergy - data gets re-handled rather than flowing through.
- Xero does a great job on accounting and is already proven on our side.
What we'd build
- A flow that pushes the right data from Woodman back into Innergy so the team stays in one system.
- Effort here is gated by Innergy's connectivity - see Assumptions for the open question on its API.
- Where a direct connection isn't available, a lightweight worker can broker the data between systems.
On the radar, not yet
Parked or to confirm - revisit as the foundation landsVoice
Update from Session 2: Paul now actively wants voice input - push-to-talk on a phone or tablet to ask a question hands-free on site. That moves into scope. The parked piece is the phone-on-the-wall agent that sounds like Paul - powerful, but for once the brain has proven itself.
Instruction capture
Andrew flagged that things told verbally don't always get actioned. A simple way to capture and confirm instructions could be a small, high-frequency win - to confirm whether it's a real need.
Self-serve onboarding funnel
A funnel for the price-shopper end (investment-property, Bunnings-tier) - rough measurements, even voice-dictated, return a 3D render, materials and a price by email, with no team time. Lets you serve or redirect them without losing focus on the high-margin work. Parked for later, but worth a place on the map.
Consultation follow-up
Capture the consultation and auto-draft the warm follow-up email and specification - reflecting back what matters most to the client and how you'll deliver it. The "show the love" step is the point of difference, but writing it up is time-consuming today.
Pain against ease of build
The Brain is the highest pain, so it leads - built in phases so value lands without waiting for the whole thing. After Session 2 the specification and final-selections tool sits up with the pricing calculator as a fast, high-value win - Cameron's point being the calculator has a workaround, this doesn't. Connections feed it underneath.
The team, and how knowledge flows
Right now almost every line runs through one person. That's the picture the Brain is built to change - so Paul becomes the escalation point, not the bottleneck. Toggle the view to see the shift.
From enquiry to install - and where the Brain plugs in
Enquiry & design
Andrew · LorenaSales and design capture what the client wants, with drawing support from Roselle, Cameron or Paul.
Detailing
Verify · check the listMeasurements verified, site checked, the big list of past mistakes run through. The Brain's first checklist lives here.
Production planning
CameronResources and work orders set up and tracked through Innergy.
Project management
Cameron · Paul · AndrewWhoever owns the job steers it through the build.
Factory floor
Cabinetry & craftingHighly controlled CNC cabinetry on one side; traditional, manual crafting on the other - where the Lee Brothers Way matters most.
Delivery & install
SiteOut to delivery or site installation, then a largely organic customer-service stage.
Close-out
Cameron · InnergyWork orders closed, invoicing, then costing and analysis.
The people
Paul Ingram
The hub - technical authority & sign-offThirty years in the business. Holds the technical knowledge and the "is this good enough?" judgement everyone needs. Every other line currently routes to him. The Brain's first job is to capture him so he becomes the escalation, not the daily stop.
Cameron Ingram
Systems & InnergySits right in Paul's pocket as technical backup, and understands Innergy better than anyone else in the room. A key source to feed into the Brain - and the person who can help wire the systems together.
Andrew Gibbs
Sales & designOne of the two-person sales and design team, outward and client-facing, refining the sales process for better strike rates. Often the first person a customer meets with an unusual job. Prefers face-to-face over email, and has best-practice worth capturing into the Brain.
Lorena
Sales & designShares the sales and design load with Andrew. Hits the same wall on quoting - a price looks off, it isn't trusted, so work pauses to check with Paul. A direct beneficiary of the pricing calculator and the Brain.
Roselle
Design & drawing supportSupports the design and drawing work and sits in the middle of the production flow. Another person who currently leans on Paul or Cameron for the more technical detail.
Detailing
The crucial QA stepAfter a design is signed off, detailing verifies measurements, visits site, and checks against the big list of past mistakes before anything reaches the factory. That checklist is a natural first piece of the Brain - and "the one detail you missed" is a real, recurring pain.
Ashley & Sam · champions
The two most experienced joinersNamed in Session 2 as the champions - the team's go-to for technical answers (Paul reckons Sam gets asked five times for every question he does). Bring Ashley in early so it stays one system, not "Ask Lee and Ask Ash". Sam's questions are often reassurance ("is this good enough?"), so the Brain needs to give confidence, not just facts. Both are key sources to capture from.
Gaz (long-serving part-timer)
Two days a week, paper-basedThe longest-serving hand, low on digital and happiest with everything printed. Andrew expects most of the team would adopt a mobile-friendly app readily - Gaz is the likely exception and the accessibility edge case to design around.
Future quoters
Not career joinersAs the business scales, quoting falls to people without joinery backgrounds. They're the reason guardrails and the Brain matter - confidence and the right answer, without needing to interrupt Paul.
The systems, and how they feed the Brain
Innergy is home. Everything else either feeds knowledge into the Brain or wants to flow back into Innergy so the team can stay in one place. Here's the landscape we heard, and where each piece fits.
The integration prize: everything flowing into Innergy
The biggest opportunity is getting Cabinet Vision and Woodman to flow through to Innergy - Innergy's engineering sync may already open the door, which Cameron knows best. Done well, that ends double-handling like the two-hour manual stock-take upload.
Innergy
The ERP the team try to live in - pricing, purchase orders, material inventory and time tracking. Cameron maintains it; there's room to use more of it. Some tasks are still manual, like the stock-take that takes two hours to upload by hand.
The hub other systems and the Brain feed intoCabinet Vision
Holds the cabinet library and the construction fundamentals the detailer works from. Can price too, though pricing stays in Innergy. A big automation opportunity sits in getting it talking to Innergy.
Connect through to InnergyWoodman
Specialist timber joinery software that sits outside Innergy. The aim is to have its output feed back into Innergy so nothing has to be re-handled.
Feed back into InnergyXero
Does the accounting, and does it well. Proven and reliable on our side, so it carries the financial picture without surprises.
Stable - light-touch connectionMicrosoft 365 / OneDrive
Outlook, Word and Excel, plus an extensive OneDrive holding SOPs, technical information and manuals - alongside years of emails advising builders and architects. It also holds the production forms (a multi-tab Excel, one "yellow folder" per job) - the current source of truth that lives outside Innergy. The richest seam to mine for the Brain.
Primary source to ingest into the BrainCNC programming software
The older programming software used for non-standard work, with its own library - it doesn't run through Cabinet Vision. Worth noting as part of the landscape rather than an early target.
Note for later - not phase oneJMF suite
A tested, building-code-compliant suite of timber joinery designs. Valuable reference - but it carries copyright, so how it can be brought into the Brain needs checking before we rely on it.
Confirm licensing firstPaul's Excel calculator
The doors-and-sashes pricing sheet that can price almost anything from its parts, returning a price and gross profit per hour. Sound logic, daunting interface - exactly what priority two rebuilds.
Rebuild as the pricing toolFireflies & dictation
Fireflies already captures meetings like this one - Cameron wants the same idea catching site and workshop conversations into the Brain. Dictation tools (Whisper) can also help the team feed knowledge in by talking, not typing.
Capture conversations into the BrainOpen questions
A few answers will sharpen the roadmap and the estimates. Session 2 already closed several - here's where things stand.
Answered in Session 2
The Brain
The Calculator
Adoption & devices
Output & clients
Working assumptions
These shape the estimates. The first one is the big lever - it decides how cleanly the connections layer can be built.
Innergy connectivity - the key lever, now part-answered
Good news from the call: Innergy does have APIs (Cameron has API keys, already used for shop capacity, forecasting, sales reporting and time tracking). We haven't found a native MCP server yet, but that needs more digging before we rule it out - and worst case we build our own lightweight MCP layer over those APIs, the same pattern we use for most New Zealand tools. Worth probing Innergy's "Ask AI", Infinergy and the Micro Vellum engineering sync - if any of those expose access, it's a big time saver. As a subscription one-stop-shop, Innergy may guard that to protect its own add-ons.
Innergy has APIs we can build on
Confirmed - API keys exist and are in use. We haven't found a native MCP server yet and are still checking; if there isn't one, we build our own layer over the APIs. Worth a direct check on "Ask AI" / Infinergy access.
Woodman can export or expose its data
Needed for the Woodman → Innergy flow. Even a scheduled export would let us broker the data across.
The JMF suite can be used in the Brain
The JMF joinery suite is valuable, code-compliant reference, but it carries copyright. We need to confirm how it can be brought in before relying on it.
Xero carries the accounting side
We've built on the Xero API repeatedly - high confidence it carries the accounting side without surprises.
Workstations have screens we can build onto
Confirmed - most workstations already have a computer and screen, currently used only for time tracking in Innergy. They are mouse-and-keyboard, not touch, so the design targets that plus mobile for the bench and field.
The existing calculator logic is sound
Paul's Excel pricing model is good - the rebuild is about the interface and guardrails, not reworking the maths.
MBIE pilot subsidises the early hours
The pilot covers a set allocation of hours at 50%, so we target the highest-impact items first, then move to flexible monthly hours afterward.
The wishlist, ranked lower
Everything from your ideas sheet, captured here. A few already sit inside the priorities above. The rest are parked as lower priority - the thinking being that anything truly urgent would have come up in detail on the call. They stay on the list and can jump the queue the moment they become real pain.
Already in the plan
These map straight onto the priorities and systems we've already covered.
Door & Sash Calculator
PaulUpload the door and sash calculator and make it its own tool.
This is Priority 2, the pricing calculatorAdvice / Conversation learning
PaulHave a conversation and the Brain listens in and learns from the advice and the outcome.
This is the Brain's capture-and-learn loopEmail rephrasing
CamA rephrasing tool for proposals and emails.
The future email-assist tool (Whisper to start)JMF manual
CamThe JMF timber joinery manual.
Noted in Systems - pending the copyright checkKnowledge to feed the Brain
Reference material to ingest as the Brain grows. Mostly capture work, lower lift once the framework is in place.
Lean process documents
CamAll Lean-focused improvement process documents.
SOP documents
CamUpload and update SOPs to align with Innergy and 2026 standards.
Lee Bros Way documents
CamUpload and update the Lee Brothers Way to align with Innergy and 2026 standards.
Text books
PaulReference texts, especially for stairs.
Hardware specifications
PaulWindsor, Zebratti, Unique, Brio.
Glazing specs & standards
PaulRegulations, standards and performance.
Health & Safety
CamUpload H&S docs, record H&S meeting minutes, update documents as required.
Checklists
These plug into the detailing and install stages - close cousins of the Brain's "big list".
Cabinetry install checklist
CamA checklist people can load up and follow when heading to site to install cabinetry.
Site measure & detail checklists
CamBuilt from your production forms.
Estimating tools
A family that builds on the pricing calculator - worth sequencing together once that lands.
Kitchen costings estimate
AndrewA basic version of the kitchen costings template, so estimates can be made on site.
Price list uploader
CamSupports both estimating tools - upload recent material price changes for accurate estimates.
Back costing tool
CamInput budget from Innergy and actuals from Xero to back-cost a job.
Bigger bets - imagery & design
Ambitious and further out. These also drive the open question about what the Brain's output needs to look like.
Render video / photos of drawings
CamUpload production forms and detailed drawings to create renders for clients.
Design builder
Cam / GibbyTake photos of a space and a floor plan to create a design for cabinetry or joinery units.