PP Control and Automation CIO warns against following trends without a clear path to operational value

A West Midlands manufacturing outsourcing specialist is urging manufacturers to identify where their operations are being constrained before investing in artificial intelligence, rather than adopting the technology simply because others are doing so.

Ian Knight, chief information officer at PP Control and Automation, which employs more than 200 people at its facility in the West Midlands, said the business had deliberately ignored platform and technology noise and instead focused on a specific operational bottleneck: extracting structured data from complex technical documentation.

The company’s engineering team developed an AI-driven process capable of converting technical PDFs, some exceeding 1,600 pages, into structured, repeatable outputs with embedded rules, full traceability and automatic identification of missing components.

“Previously, this process required significant engineering time and manual effort,” said Knight, who has more than 30 years of industry experience.

“Now, those same documents can be processed in hours, not days. And this is just the starting point.”

From data extraction to measurable impact

The initiative has delivered a 36% recovery in headcount capacity, targeting the 60% of time previously lost to manual parsing and interpretation. Knight said the approach had also reduced friction in the early stages of customer engagement, accelerating the transition from enquiry to executable work.

“We’ve proven what you can achieve by embracing AI, not as a tool in isolation, but a system built around real manufacturing constraints,” he said.

Knight argued that the starting point for any manufacturer should be a simple question. “For organisations looking to move from experimentation to impact, the starting question should not be ‘how do we adopt AI’, but instead ‘where are we constrained, and what is the most effective way to remove that constraint?'”

PP Control and Automation is a strategic outsourcing partner for some of the world’s leading machine builders and original equipment manufacturers, and is responsible for machines used across sectors ranging from dairy farming to Formula One.