A mid-sized manufacturer automated weekly production reporting by combining Python data pipelines with Claude API narrative generation — eliminating weekend overtime and cutting errors in four weeks.
A mid-sized manufacturer’s production control team spent every Friday morning producing the weekly management report. The task involved pulling Excel files from seven departments — output volume, defect rates, equipment uptime, raw material consumption — and consolidating everything into a single formatted document.
The process took four hours each week. Done by hand, it generated 3–4 data errors per month: unit mismatches, stale figures from the previous week, and copy-paste mistakes. Errors often weren’t caught until the Monday morning management meeting, sometimes requiring weekend rework.
INTESOL automated only the data aggregation and report generation steps, deliberately keeping the existing Excel-based workflow intact to minimise change management friction.
Step 1 — Automatic Excel Data Collection: When each department saves its file to a designated shared folder, a Python script detects the new file, extracts the data using openpyxl, and validates it against expected ranges and format rules.
Step 2 — Data Validation and Anomaly Detection: The pipeline checks value ranges, unit consistency, and week-over-week variance automatically. If an anomaly is found, the responsible person receives an instant notification — before the report is generated, not after.
Step 3 — Claude API Narrative Report Generation: Validated data is passed to Claude, which generates the full management narrative: week-on-week change analysis, notable anomalies, and recommended actions for the coming week — written in the company’s existing reporting style.
Step 4 — Excel and PDF Auto-Delivery: The generated analysis is inserted into the existing management report template in Excel format, converted to PDF, and emailed automatically to executives every Monday morning.
From the first week after launch, the production control team’s Friday report work dropped from four hours to twenty minutes of final review. Error incidents fell from 3–4 per month to near zero — a 91% reduction. Weekend rework was eliminated entirely, and management received their Monday briefing automatically without anyone working overtime to produce it.