AscentOS: Production Scheduling and Copilot Agents for Australian Manufacturers

Job	Product	Phase	Due	Status
4821	Pressure Vessel Assy	Weld	14 Sep	Running
4835	Conveyor Framework	Fit Out	18 Sep	Running
4847	Pump Station Unit	Cut	22 Sep	On plan
4852	Skid Frame 2400	Paint	25 Sep	At risk
4860	Tank Shell 12kL	Roll	01 Oct	On plan

Ascent Operations Diagnostic

Know where to focus first.

The Ascent Operations Diagnostic is our entry product and the foundation of every client engagement. It combines a 260-question structured assessment with a direct interview with your leadership team. The output is a scored report with findings, charts, and a prioritised roadmap of exactly where to focus, and in what order.

260-question Ascent Maturity Assessment across 13 operational disciplines
Structured interview with founders and key leaders to uncover real pain points
Scored report with charts, domain breakdowns, and maturity ratings
Prioritised improvement roadmap, top opportunities ranked by impact
Recommendations on which Ascent applications address each identified gap
60-minute debrief call to walk through every finding in the report

The 13 disciplines we score against the Class A benchmark

Purchasing & ProcurementInventory ManagementProduction Scheduling Sales & Operations PlanningDemand ManagementSupply Chain Management Financial PlanningData ManagementPeople & Leadership Process & QualityTechnology & SystemsCustomer Management Continuous Improvement

Who We Work With

Built for manufacturers who are ready to improve how they operate.

We work with owner-led and GM-led manufacturing and industrial businesses across Australia. If your operation runs on gut feel and you are ready to bring structure, visibility and intelligence to how you run it, we should talk.

Industry

Manufacturing & industrial services

Any business that makes, moves, maintains or services physical things, from food and beverage to heavy industry, civil, mining services and everything in between.

Geography

Australia-wide

We work with businesses nationally, delivered remotely. No travel costs, no waiting for a site visit.

Decision-maker

Owner, CEO, GM or CFO

We deal directly with the people who own the problem, not IT departments or procurement committees.

Sound familiar?

“We have initiatives everywhere but nothing ever closes.”

“I don't trust the numbers my team gives me.”

“Everyone does things their own way. There's no standard across the business.”

“We're reactive. Meetings happen but nothing changes.”

“Customers keep asking when their job will be ready and I have no idea what to tell them.”

“We've outgrown spreadsheets but can't justify a full ERP.”

13

Engagement Process

Every engagement starts with the Ascent Operations Diagnostic.

We start by understanding exactly where your business is today, scored against a Class A benchmark across 13 operational disciplines. From there, we show you where to focus, what it will take, and how our applications deliver the improvement. No guesswork. No generic advice.

01

The Ascent Operations Diagnostic

We run the 260-question Ascent Maturity Assessment with your leadership team and conduct a structured interview to understand your real pain points. The output is a scored report: maturity ratings across every operational discipline, priority findings, and a clear roadmap of where to focus first.

02

Findings, priorities and recommendations

We walk you through the report in a 60-minute debrief. You see exactly where your operation scores against the Class A benchmark, which gaps cost you the most, and which Ascent applications deliver the greatest improvement. The priorities are yours to keep, regardless of what comes next.

03

Put the findings to work

The roadmap is yours to act on however you choose. Where the findings point at something AscentOS already does, we configure it to your operation and deploy it. Scope and price are agreed before any work starts. Where they point somewhere else, we will say so and tell you what to look for instead.

What We Build

Two products. One diagnostic. One operational picture.

Every engagement starts with the Diagnostic. What it finds determines what comes next. AscentOS is 2 products, not an open build shop. Both are configured to your operation. Neither is a custom application written from scratch, because software that only 1 business runs is software that only 1 person can support.

Ascent Foreman

Production scheduling software

Foreman is a production scheduler for make-to-order and engineer-to-order manufacturers. It sits beside your ERP rather than inside it, and it plans against the demand your factory actually has.

Most schedulers accept the lead times someone typed in years ago and never revisit them. Foreman treats every configured lead time as an estimate, then corrects it against what your shop floor actually does, phase by phase. The plan gets more accurate the longer you use it.

Every figure a user sees comes from a deterministic scheduling engine. No learned correction reaches your live schedule until a named person accepts it.

Example applicationsFactory boardPlanning workspaceScenario comparisonWorkstation loadingLead time correctionDelivery date confidence

Ascent Agents

Microsoft Copilot agents

What is the stock position on 50NB flanges and when does the next PO land?

42 on hand, 18 allocated to job 4847. PO 10912 for 100 units arrives 24 September 2026.

Purpose-built AI agents that answer questions and take action across your own documents and systems, deployed inside your own Microsoft 365 environment. Your team works with them through Teams, SharePoint and Outlook, which they already use.

An agent grounded on your documents answers what your business knows. An agent connected to your live systems answers what your business is doing right now. We build both, and we connect agents to the tools you already run: your ERP, HubSpot, Xero, SharePoint, your job and inventory data. A single question can pull from several of them at once.

We handle the whole build: preparing your source documents, designing the knowledge base, building the connections, testing, deploying to your tenant, then supporting it under a managed retainer. The agent lives in your tenant, under your identity and security controls.

Example applicationsERP support and trainingLive job and stock statusSales intelligence from CRMProcurement queriesSupplier communicationsCross-system reporting

Ascent Operations Diagnostic

Where to focus first

3.0Maturity score, out of 5

A fixed-price assessment of how your business plans, schedules, buys and measures, scored across 13 operational disciplines against a Class A benchmark.

It is the entry point to both products above, and it stands on its own. You receive a scored report, priority findings and a ranked improvement roadmap, and you keep that roadmap whether you build anything with us or not.

Delivered remotely in 5 to 7 business days, with a 60-minute debrief to walk through every finding.

What you receive260-question assessmentLeadership interviewScored maturity reportPriority findingsImprovement roadmap60-minute debrief

Who Builds This

Ivan Skobe

Founder, Ascent Operating Systems

MCIPS CharteredCPIMCSCP

30+ years on production floors. Not advising from the outside, actually doing it. Supply chain, procurement, production scheduling, inventory management, ERP implementations. The full stack, at real manufacturers, across Australia.

I built AscentOS because I spent 30 years watching the same problems repeat themselves in business after business. Inventory nobody trusted. Purchasing that ran through phone calls and spreadsheets. Production schedules that existed in 1 person's head. Leaders who knew something was wrong but could not get traction on fixing it.

The tools I build are the tools I wish had existed when I was running these floors. Purpose-built for how manufacturing actually works, not adapted from something designed for a different industry.

Every engagement is with me directly. No junior staff, no handoffs, no account managers. You deal with the person who has run the operations you are trying to fix.

Track Record

What we have built, and where it runs.

Software we have designed, built and support, running daily inside real manufacturing and industrial businesses.

Production Scheduler

Production scheduler, purpose built for 1 manufacturer

A scheduling application we designed, built and support for an Australian industrial manufacturer. It runs daily across 3 operating sites for a workforce of 35+, replacing spreadsheets and tribal knowledge with a single real time picture.

That system is not Ascent Foreman. It is where Foreman came from. 10 weeks inside a real factory schedule taught us which assumptions every scheduler makes and gets wrong, and Foreman is the product built on that answer.

3Operating sites

35+Daily users

<10Weeks to deploy

AI Agents in Microsoft 365

Operational AI agents running inside a live Microsoft 365 environment

Custom AI agents deployed within an existing Microsoft 365 environment (Teams, SharePoint, Outlook), automating operational workflows and surfacing real-time intelligence without replacing the tools the team already uses.

No new software to learn. No IT infrastructure required. The agent runs under the client's own identity and security controls.

0New tools to learn

3Surfaces: Teams, SharePoint, Outlook

Client details withheld at their request. References available to serious enquiries.

Common Questions

What you're probably wondering.

What exactly do I get from the Operations Diagnostic?

A scored maturity report across 13 operational disciplines, a structured interview with your leadership team, priority findings with root cause analysis, and a ranked improvement roadmap. You also get a 60-minute debrief where we walk through every finding. The deliverable is a document you can act on, not a presentation that sits in a drawer.

Do I need to be in the same city as you?

No. Every engagement is delivered remotely. The Diagnostic interview is conducted via video call, the assessment is completed online, and the report is delivered digitally. We work with businesses across Australia without anyone needing to travel.

We already have an ERP. Is the Diagnostic still relevant?

Usually more relevant, not less. Most of the businesses we work with have an ERP. The Diagnostic assesses whether your processes and disciplines are mature enough to get value from it. ERP maturity is 1 of the 13 disciplines we score. A system is only as good as the processes it is built on.

How is this different from hiring a consultant?

The Diagnostic is a fixed-price product with a defined deliverable, not an open-ended engagement billed by the day. You know exactly what you are getting and what it costs before we start. There are no ongoing retainers, no ambiguous scope, and no surprises. If we build anything after the Diagnostic, that is also fixed scope and fixed price, agreed before a single line of work begins.

What happens after the Diagnostic?

You receive your report and roadmap. What happens next is entirely your decision. Some clients take the roadmap and act on it internally. Others work with us to build the specific applications the Diagnostic identifies. There is no obligation to proceed beyond the Diagnostic, and no pressure to do so.

$5,000 feels significant. How do I know it is worth it?

The Diagnostic looks for cost you are already carrying and cannot see: stock you do not need, work being done by hand that does not need to be, and margin lost to rework and expediting. What it finds depends entirely on your operation, so we will not put a number on it before we have looked. What you get is fixed regardless: a scored report, ranked findings, and a roadmap you keep whether you build anything with us or not. The 30-minute discovery call costs nothing and will tell you whether the Diagnostic fits before you commit to anything.

Your operations, finally under control.