MANUFACTURING · DISTRIBUTION · CONVENIENCE STORE

AI Automation for Convenience Store.

Harmony digitizes the paper store-door check-in sheets, signals mis-picks back to the pick line, automates tobacco and tax compliance, and works promo deductions with AI. One AI-native operating system over everything: your floor, your machines, and the software you already run. No rip-and-replace.

Start with a pilot ROI Calculators & Tools

THE PROCESS

First a digital transformation. Then an AI transformation.

FIG. 01 · THE TWO ARCS

ARC 1 · DIGITAL

ARC 2 · AI

Data engineering is the work.AI is what it unlocks.

THE PHASED ROLLOUT

Three phases of a digital and AI transformation.

PHASE 01

PHASE 1

Lay the Data Foundation · Digitization

Every pen-and-paper record digitized at the station, every software system connected, and all of the data unified into one live layer. The digital transformation starts here.

PHASE 02

PHASE 2

Production & Operations Scale

Factory operations turn proactive: live sensors and machine data, the AI scheduling board, predictive maintenance before failure.

PHASE 03

PHASE 3

AI-Native Operations

Agents across the floor and the back office act on the live layer: quality signals, reports, copilots. Humans approve.

AI USE CASES

Eleven ways the AI layer earns its keep.

Index · 09 use cases

U1

Paperwork Digitization

Use case 01 · PEN, PAPER & EXCEL

Problem. Paper check-in sheets signed at the store door ride back in the cab. Pick-error logs live in Excel on one supervisor's desktop.

Harmony AI Solution. Digital capture at the door and at the check station. Every stop builds its own history: what was ordered, picked, checked, delivered, credited, and signed for.

U2

AI Search Across All Data

Use case 02 · AI SEARCH & AGENTS

Problem. "Which stores cut their cigarette orders this month, and what else did they stop buying?" means an ERP export, three inboxes, and an afternoon.

Harmony AI Solution. Natural-language AI search across the ERP, inboxes, and SKU history, answered in seconds with sources cited.

U3

AI Production Scheduling

Use case 03 · AI SCHEDULING & ROUTING

Problem. Routes rebuilt by hand every afternoon around store windows, driver hours, truck cube, and credit holds. One call-off scrambles the whole board.

Harmony AI Solution. AI scheduling and routing models the router's own logic and proposes the per-stop plan: sequence, cube, windows, holds. The router stays in charge and approves.

U4

Live Machine Data

Use case 04 · LIVE EQUIPMENT DATA

Problem. Pick rates live in the WMS, check-weights on a printout, dock activity in nobody's system at all. Nothing sits side by side.

Harmony AI Solution. Direct connections to scanners, scales, sortation PLCs, and dock sensors, Allen-Bradley or any brand, via OPC UA or whatever the equipment speaks, streamed in real time next to the orders they touched.

U5

In-Line Quality Intelligence

Use case 05 · PICK ACCURACY

Problem. Mis-picks surface at check, at the store door, or as next week's credit report. By then the same slot has shorted forty stores.

Harmony AI Solution. Every error captured with its cause: slot, SKU, picker, wave, hour.

U6

Back-Office AI Automations

Use case 06 · FULL-SCOPE AI AGENTS · FINANCE, SALES, PROCUREMENT, LOGISTICS

Problem. Tobacco excise reports, stamp reconciliation, and multi-state filings assembled by hand from ERP exports every month, with penalties riding on a typo.

Harmony AI Solution. Full-scope AI agents run the workflows across financial, sales, procurement, and logistics: deductions and AR worked automatically, POs parsed from the inbox, and reports written before the morning meeting.

Scope. Financials, sales, procurement, and logistics automations, in the same platform.

U7

AI Workflow Automation

Use case 07 · PER-STOP PROFITABILITY

Problem. Drop size, miles, credits, returns, and collect time make some stops money-losers, and nobody can prove which ones.

Harmony AI Solution. AI assembles true cost-to-serve per stop from route, delivery, and AR data. Sales walks into the renewal knowing exactly which accounts carry the route and which drain it.

U8

New-Item Setup

Use case 08 · NEW-ITEM SETUP

Problem. Hundreds of new items a month keyed by hand across the ERP: costs, retails, tax flags, UPCs. Meanwhile a store quietly halves a category and nobody notices for a quarter.

Harmony AI Solution. AI document processing reads the supplier's new-item sheet and drafts the setup for approval.

U9

Inventory + Shortage Intelligence

Use case 09 · INVENTORY + DOCUMENT AI

Problem. Stock that exists in the system but not on the shelf shorts the pick line, cycle counts eat weekends, and the proof for every dispute is a supplier invoice or a driver note nobody can find.

Harmony AI Solution. An AI-maintained true-stock layer flags count drift before tomorrow's shorts.

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YOUR LIKELY STACK

The systems and machines we meet on your floor.

SYSTEMS

NetSuiteAptean / AFSNECS entreeSageHomegrown AS/400-era ERPsOmnitracs RoadnetDescartesWMSExcelCustom appsLocal servers

MACHINES

Zebra / Honeywell scannersFloor and check-weigh scalesConveyor and sortation PLCsDock door sensorsTruck telematicsLabel printers

You might run any of these. Or none of them. Harmony is software and hardware agnostic, and we connect live machine data from any PLC brand and any software or custom app.

AI AGENTS

Agents that watch, flag, and act. Humans decide.

Mis-Pick Signal Agent

Per-Stop Profit Agent

Tobacco Tax Compliance Agent

Promo Deduction Copilot

New-Item Setup Agent

Order Anomaly Watch

AR Collections Copilot

Account Churn Watch

Morning Report Writer

Custom Agents, built for your floor and back office

THE PATTERN WE SEE

The problems we see on every convenience store floor, and why they happen.

The ERP, routing, and handhelds do not share data

The same SKU carries three item numbers in three systems, and the driver's handheld agrees with none of them.

Delivery proof lives on paper in the truck

Check-in sheets, credit slips, driver notes, and pick-error logs are keyed into Excel a day later or filed and never read.

Margin is pennies, and nobody sees where they go

Promo deductions go unmatched, tobacco tax exposure builds, and some stops lose money on every delivery.

The back office is buried in filings and deductions

State excise filings, stamp reconciliation, new-item setup, deduction research, and collections calls are all done by hand.

The back office runs on manual work

POs are typed in from emails, invoices keyed into the ERP, deductions and AR worked from spreadsheets, and reports built by hand before the morning meeting.

THE PILOT

$15–20K. 4–6 weeks. One painful problem.

We pick one specific pain point, send engineers to live in your factory for 4–6 weeks, and solve it. One-time payment, working software by week 3, and no obligation to go further. If you do, you choose the modules that you like.

FIRST CALLSECOND CALLCHOOSE PILOTDATA ACCESS FROM ITON-SITEBUILDTESTROIREVIEW

Start with a pilot →Book a Demo →

QUESTIONS, ANSWERED

Do you replace our ERP or WMS?

Additive by default. The AI layer sits on top of what you already run, and when a system deserves to be replaced, we replace it. Sometimes we're the layer on top of your WMS. Sometimes we are the WMS. Software and hardware agnostic.

Our ERP is a decades-old AS/400 system. Can you work with it?

Yes. AS/400-era ERPs, NECS entree, Aptean, Sage, NetSuite, homegrown systems, it does not matter. Data engineering is the work. AI is what it unlocks. We build read-only connections to whatever you run and put the AI layer on top.

Can you automate our tobacco and state excise reporting?

Yes. The filings are drafted from the same transaction data your ERP already holds, stamps are reconciled to sales, and gaps are flagged before the deadline. Every agent proposes. A person reviews and files. Nothing goes to a state without a human approving it.

Can you get live data off our scanners, scales, and dock equipment?

Yes. Direct connections to scanners, scales, conveyor and sortation PLCs, and dock sensors, Allen-Bradley/Rockwell, Siemens, Omron, Mitsubishi, or any other brand, via OPC UA or whatever the equipment speaks, streamed into the AI layer in real time.

How does the AI get our data, and is it safe?

Read-only connections, scheduled exports, or on-prem. Security is reviewed together in scoping. Read-only pilots. Every agent proposes. A person approves. Baseline first, then measure. Estimates are labeled as estimates.

What does it cost after the pilot?

A per-warehouse annual platform: unlimited seats, no user fees, hardware at cost. The pilot itself runs 4-6 weeks against one painful problem, with working software by week 3. First a digital transformation. Then an AI transformation. Growth, not cuts.

Do you work remotely?

No. We always start a pilot in person and on-site, with forward-deployed engineers on your floor. Very rarely do we do anything remotely.

When every stop, deduction, and filing is tracked automatically, low-single-digit margin becomes visible and defensible.

Start a scoping conversation →

ADJACENT FLOORS WE RUN

Produce →Meat & Seafood →Dairy →Beverage & Liquor →Bakery Ingredients →