Standardization pays off for small and mid-sized manufacturers — and the benefits come whether you build your own standard or subscribe to ours, delivered as a service.
Automation fails before the first machine is installed. Not because the equipment is wrong — because there's no standard to build on, no realistic plan, and no one inside the plant who owns it. Start with Standard fixes that order: readiness first, equipment second.
A standard isn't paperwork. Once it's in place, it changes how the whole plant quotes, buys, stocks, and staffs.
With your standards already defined, an RFQ stops being a fresh engineering exercise every time. Scope, naming, and specifications are ready to hand to a vendor — so quotes come back faster, procurement moves quicker, and your next project starts sooner.
A standard turns every quote from a guess into a known quantity. When integrators build to your defined naming, panels, and wiring, there's less to scope from scratch and less room for padded estimates — so you compare bids on the same basis and hold pricing from one project to the next.
When your lines share the same drives, sensors, and components, you stock fewer unique parts and more shared ones. The same critical spare now covers several lines — carrying cost drops, and you're far less likely to be caught without the part you need.
When every line runs on the same HMI screens, the same alarm structure, and the same controls, your people aren't tied to one machine. An operator or maintenance tech who knows one line can run and support the next, so coverage no longer rests on a single person.
Every Start with Standard engagement follows the same path.
The entry point. Every engagement starts here — a clear-eyed read of where the plant is and what readiness will take.
A two-day hands-on workshop. You learn how to build your own standard and plan your automation projects the right way — you leave with the methods to create your own standard.
A second workshop, focused on internal ownership — teaching your team how to compartmentalize workflows, prioritize project ownership, and calculate ROIs properly, so the standard stays in use, not a binder no one opens.
Implement your own standard and roll it out plant-wide. Or skip the build entirely — subscribe to Start with Standard, our standard-as-a-service program, and we roll it out with you, typically in 5–7 months.
Four very different operations — the same advantage, once the engineering runs on a standard.
A vertically-integrated cold storage company cut electrical engineering from 22,000 hours to 800 once their work ran on a standard — their own in-house result, built over years. Start with Standard gives smaller manufacturers that standard without the wait.
Electrical-engineering hours, once the work ran on a standard
Volkswagen runs its body-shop standard, VASS 6, across its assembly lines. Because every line conforms to it, a full set of HMI screens is no longer weeks of engineering — it can be generated 100%, in under 30 minutes.
To generate a full set of HMI screens
Tesla is standardized enough that an operator can move to any workstation and know exactly what to do. The application changes from cell to cell — but the way every automation and robotic cell is operated stays the same.
Of workstations any operator can run
Blue Origin ran three shifts, with the first far outpacing the other two. After they standardized the workflow, documented it, and trained the second and third shifts on it, both caught up — each now performs close to what the lead shift once did alone.
Shifts running at the lead shift's pace
Start with Standard is for small and mid-sized manufacturers and logistics companies that are ready to automate but frustrated by an industry that was never built to serve them. If you've tried automation before and it didn't land — or you're planning a first line and want it to — this is the front door.
Subscribing to the PITCO standard also unlocks AEOS — the platform that generates engineering automatically. Integrators who work with you generate on AEOS instead of engineering from scratch, cutting future engineering time and cost by up to 80%.
See how AEOS worksThe assessment is the front door. Tell us a little about your plant and what you'd like to automate or improve.
