Key points
What the report says
Five chapters, one argument: in a plant the process crosses more departments than anyone owns, and the waiting happens at the seams. The process has to be visible end to end before it is improved or automated. Fictional examples, no client data.
The order crosses every department
Sales, planning, production, quality, logistics and finance each own a third of order-to-delivery and nobody owns the whole. The loops, a missing part, a failed check, a changed date, are where the process is really decided.
The manual and the plant drift apart
The quality manual describes the intended process at the last audit. The shift lead knows the actual one, including the workaround for the printer in the warehouse. The gap is invisible until a customer or an auditor asks.
The frameworks expect records
ISO 9001, the German Supply Chain Due Diligence Act and the EU AI Act, described in general terms, expect a process approach with documented information, traceability where required, supplier due diligence and, for certain AI uses, human oversight and logging.
AI agents need lanes and limits
An agent can confirm availability, draft a production order or chase a missing certificate inside a visible process; it cannot give the quality release or the supplier approval. The guardrails are a lane, a control step and a person who decides.
Contents
What the report covers
The full report has five chapters. It opens with the processes as they typically run, with lane sketches, moves to where the knowledge about them gets lost, then describes the regulatory context as general orientation on public frameworks, not as legal advice. The fourth chapter is about AI agents and their guardrails, and the last one about the first step.
Contents of the full report
Typical core processes
order-to-delivery, supplier onboarding, production planning, complaints
Where process knowledge gets lost
quality manual, heads, systems; hand-overs; exceptions
Regulatory and audit context
ISO 9001, the Supply Chain Due Diligence Act (LkSG), the EU AI Act, in general terms
Where AI agents can help, and the guardrails they need
How to start
one process, captured from the people who run it; the patchley Pilot
The picture
Three places where a process lives
The report's second chapter compares the quality manual, people's heads and a BPMN model as places where process knowledge lives. The table below is the short version; the diagram is one of the fictional example models used in the report.
| In the quality manual | In people's heads | In a BPMN model | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it describes | The intended process at the last audit. | The actual process, including the loops and workarounds, as each department sees its part. | The agreed actual process with one lane per department, systems, documents and the releases as control steps. |
| Who can read it | Anyone, but few do. | Only the person, and only when asked. | People and software: a diagram for the team, a structure for the AI. |
| What happens at a change | Nothing, until the next revision. | The routine changes quietly. | The change is shown, decided and versioned. |
| What an auditor sees | A document that may not match the plant. | A walk through the plant and an interview. | Control steps with owner and record, per step. |
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