AI Payback Session: your first three AI use cases, owned and measured
Most leadership teams can name a dozen places AI might help. Few can name three that the CFO has signed off, an executive owns, and the plant will change how it works to adopt. This session gets your team to those three, with the numbers to prove whether they paid back.
It is for CEOs and leadership teams of industrial and manufacturing companies with no AI plan yet, or with pilots and no measurable return, and for the operating partners who back them.
If no one in the room will put their name to a use case, it does not make the list.
How it works
- Pre-work, two weeks. Six to ten leader interviews, a plant walk, a twelve-month baseline pull on the KPIs that matter, and a scan of your candidate use cases, narrowed to eight to twelve pre-scored options before anyone sits down.
- The session, four hours. Six to nine executives, and the CFO is required. The team narrows to five, tests each one’s value and the change to the workflow on Monday morning, then decides the first three, names an owner for each, and maps the next 90 days.
- The value check. Within three days, a working session with the CFO and COO confirms each baseline and the value calculation before anything is written down as a commitment.
- The decision document. Delivered within five business days, with a readout for the leadership team or the operating partner.
How the first three are chosen
Every use case must pass four tests
- It moves a KPI that already shows up in the P&L or the operations review, with a baseline you can pull in two weeks
- The data exists and can be reached within 30 days
- A named business owner has authority over the workflow
- The scope is bounded, with a production decision inside 90 days
And the three should balance
- One on the plant floor, such as maintenance or quality
- One in planning or working capital, such as forecasting, inventory or scheduling
- One quick back-office win that shows value inside 60 days
What you leave with
The decisions
- A one-page decision memo: three use cases, three owners, the 90-day ask
- A decision-rights map for each use case
- The workflow change each one requires
- A list of what you decided not to do
The numbers
- A value case for each use case, with floor, base and stretch cases and payback in months
- A baseline sheet signed by finance
- A data readiness scorecard with the gaps to close
- Checkpoints at 30, 60 and 90 days, with the thresholds to stop or scale
Is this the right starting point?
The Payback Session is for “we do not know where to start.” If an AI or data investment is already funded and has stalled, start with the AI and Data Situation Assessment instead. If a transaction is ahead, see the AI Diligence Readiness Review.
Half the fee is credited toward a fractional engagement that starts within 30 days, so the 90-day checkpoints can be run with the same person who set them.
Value cases are built from your own baselines and confirmed with your finance team; no figure is committed that your CFO has not seen. Questions: inquiry@hawksroost.com or (877) 417-1184.