Services — Three Engagements, Each With a Defined Endpoint
Three ways to work with Shinonome, depending on where you are.
Each engagement is scoped, priced, and timed separately. They can be taken in sequence or independently. The most common starting point is the process suitability assessment, but that is not a requirement if your situation calls for something more specific.
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All three engagements compared across key dimensions.
| Dimension | Process Assessment | Forecasting Model | Staff Capability |
|---|---|---|---|
| Duration | 3 weeks | 10 weeks | 6 weeks (4 sessions) |
| Investment | ¥26,000 | ¥44,000 | ¥29,000 |
| Primary Output | Ranked process table with recommendations and exclusions | Working forecast model with validation and retraining docs | Prepared staff, policy draft, role-specific session materials |
| Data Needed | Process documentation or descriptions | 3+ years of consistent operational records | Existing role descriptions and use case context |
| After-Close | Written output designed for internal use | Retraining documentation for internal teams | 2-month question channel open after final session |
| Suits | Teams evaluating whether to automate before committing | Firms with consistent historical records and planning needs | Organisations introducing tools without prior staff preparation |
Before any implementation, it is worth knowing whether your candidate processes actually suit automated handling. Many do not — at least not yet. Some require documentation that does not exist. Some have variability that no current tool handles reliably. Some are simply better left as they are.
The process suitability assessment examines your candidate processes and produces a ranked table covering volume, variability, error tolerance, existing documentation quality, and the availability of historical examples. For each process, we provide a clear recommendation — including which to leave alone and why.
This engagement runs three weeks and is intended for management teams under pressure to adopt tools without a clear reason to. The output gives a direct answer to the question: of these processes, which ones are actually ready?
What's Included
Ranked table of candidate processes with individual assessments
Effort and running cost estimate for each recommended process
Explicit list of processes not recommended, with reasons stated
Written output designed for internal distribution and future reference
Investment
¥26,000
Fixed — stated upfront
Demand and workload forecasting from a company's own historical records tends to produce more consistent results than individual judgement — but only when the model is built from data that actually reflects your organisation, validated against periods your team recognises, and handed over in a form your staff can maintain.
This engagement covers data preparation, model selection, validation against held-back periods, and integration into the planning routine already in use. We compare the model's performance against your existing method — not just against a theoretical baseline — and include that comparison in the handover.
Ten weeks. Suited to firms with three or more years of consistent records. Applications include inventory planning, staff scheduling, and capacity decisions. The handover documentation is designed to allow internal teams to retrain the model as new data accumulates, without returning to us.
What's Included
Data preparation and cleaning from your existing records
Model selection and validation against held-back periods
Honest reporting of forecast error rates
Comparison against your existing forecasting method
Handover documentation for internal retraining
Investment
¥44,000
Fixed — stated upfront
Staff who understand what automated tools do — and where their output requires checking — use them more effectively than those who have been told to trust whatever the system produces. The gap is not technical skill. It is genuine understanding of what the tool is doing and when human judgement is still needed.
This programme prepares employees across four sessions over six weeks. It covers what these systems do, where their output requires checking, how to describe tasks effectively to automated tools, and the organisation's own policy on acceptable use. Sessions use the company's own material — not generic scenarios that require translation back to the actual work.
Appropriate for organisations introducing tools where staff have had no structured preparation. Delivered with a policy draft for the department and role-specific exercises, and followed by a question channel that remains open for two months after the final session.
What's Included
4 sessions across 6 weeks, tailored to the department
Role-specific exercises using your own company material
Written policy draft for acceptable AI use in your context
Session materials for internal reference after delivery
Question channel open for 2 months after final session
Investment
¥29,000
Fixed — stated upfront
Which to Start With
Where you are now determines where to begin.
You have candidate processes and need to know which of them suit automation before deciding whether to proceed or what to budget for. The process suitability assessment produces that answer directly.
Start Here →You have consistent operational records going back several years and a planning function that relies on demand or workload forecasts. The forecasting model implementation is the appropriate starting point — the assessment is not a prerequisite.
Start Here →Tools are already being introduced — or will be shortly — and your team has had no structured preparation for working alongside them. The capability programme addresses this directly and can run alongside any implementation timeline.
Start Here →What We Do Not Cover
Situations these engagements are not suited to.
We do not operate or manage automated systems on an ongoing basis after delivery. Each engagement is designed to end with the organisation able to operate what was built independently.
The process assessment identifies which processes suit automation — it does not recommend specific platforms or vendors. Software selection depends on factors including IT environment and vendor support that fall outside our scope.
Forecasting work requires at least two to three years of consistent historical records. If this is not available, we will report what the data permits rather than proceed with a model that cannot be adequately validated.
These engagements are scoped and specific. Organisations that need multi-department transformation strategy or broad AI governance frameworks are better served by a different kind of engagement than Shinonome provides.
Getting Started
Not certain which engagement fits? We can work that out in a short conversation.
Describe your situation and we will tell you plainly which engagement applies — or whether a different direction altogether would be more useful. There is no obligation in making contact, and the conversation itself costs nothing.