Owen Reid
Operational efficiency, built secure

I find where operations quietly leak time, and build the secure systems that stop it.

I work with operators to pin down where the back office is losing time, prove what it is actually costing, and build something secure that fixes it. Sometimes the honest answer is that nothing needs changing. More often, a good manager already knows where the friction is and just needs someone to join the dots and build the solution.

How I work → Talk it through

Real systems, shipped into live businesses. Built by someone who studies how systems get broken.

£118,000
saved every year across the systems below, and still running.
5
integrations and portals built into real back offices, live today.
0
manual data entries and input errors, every record now moves on its own.
How I work

I start with your operation, not a product.

There is nothing to sell you here. Every engagement runs the same way: understand how the work actually moves, prove where it is costing you, and only then build. Nothing gets made until the problem and its price are clear.

1

Come in and understand the operation

I spend time with the people doing the day-to-day work, not just the org chart. I want to see a normal week: where work comes in, who touches it, and where it stalls. Managers usually have a strong instinct about where the friction sits. A lot of the early work is drawing that instinct out and grounding it in what is really happening on the floor.

2

Spec the jobs end to end

I map each process from start to finish: the systems it crosses, the points where data gets re-typed, the approvals it waits on, and the handoffs nobody quite owns. This is where assumptions get tested against what actually happens, and where the hidden steps tend to surface.

3

Find the inefficiency

I look for work that is repetitive, manual and error-prone: the kind that grows every time you add a person or a site. Sometimes there is nothing worth changing, and I will say so plainly. More often there are one or two things quietly costing a lot, sitting in plain sight because everyone is used to them.

4

Quantify what it costs

I put numbers on it: hours per week, error and rework rates, and what it adds up to in salary and lost time. This turns a general sense of being stretched into a short, ranked list of what is genuinely worth fixing first, and what is not.

5

Build it securely, for immediate impact

I build the system that removes the work, and I build it the way someone who studies how systems get broken would want it built: least access, controlled data paths, nothing left loose. It works alongside the systems your team already relies on, so the aim is impact you can feel quickly, not a year-long programme.

What this feels like for a company

It is light-touch, and it is honest.

From your side, it is not disruptive. I come in, ask a lot of questions, and watch how the work really happens. I am not there to tell you your operation is broken. Often it is not.

Two things tend to happen. Sometimes I look and there is nothing worth automating, and the most useful thing I can do is tell you that, so you do not spend money solving a problem you do not have. Other times, and this is more common, a good manager already knows something is inefficient. They feel it every week. What they have not had is someone to sit with them, join those thoughts into a clear picture, and work out how technology could actually fix it.

That second conversation is the one I am good at. We work out the real problem together, I prove what it is costing, and then I build something secure that has an immediate, visible impact. No long programme, no rip-and-replace, and no disruption to the systems your team already trusts.

I will tell you the truth

If there is nothing worth fixing, I say so. The honest answer is worth more than a sold project.

Nothing is built on a hunch

The inefficiency gets measured and costed before a line of the fix is written.

It works with what you have

Built securely and built to sit alongside your existing systems, not replace them.

Case studies

Inefficiencies I found, and what I built to fix them.

Each one started as a manual process that was quietly costing real money. Together they take more than £118,000 a year out of the businesses that run them, and they are all still live. Here is the inefficiency, what I built, and what it saves.

Consulting engagement · CRM integration

Joining Rubixx and SimPro into one continuous workflow

£20,000/yr zero manual data entry across the whole contract.
The engagement

Brought in to a business running two systems of record side by side, with a brief to review how work moved between Rubixx and SimPro and to specify and build the connection end to end.

The inefficiency

Work orders raised in Rubixx were being re-keyed into SimPro by hand, and job progress was chased manually across both systems. Every order carried the cost of double entry and the errors that come with it.

What I built

An integration that receives each work order from Rubixx, auto-creates the matching SimPro job, and uses SimPro webhooks to track milestones and engineer assignments and report progress back. The two systems stay in step on their own, with no re-typing.

The impact

Manual data entry and its errors were removed at source. The two systems now stay aligned on their own, so no one has to keep them in step by hand, and the manual reconciliation work disappeared.

API GatewayLambdaDynamoDBSQSWebhooks
Rubixx sends work orders to an automated pipeline that creates jobs in SimPro; SimPro returns milestone updates by webhook. Rubixx SOURCE CRM BUILT BY OWEN Automated pipeline SimPro JOB SYSTEM WORK ORDER CREATES JOB WEBHOOK · MILESTONES
A client in-house system sends a job file over SFTP to a secure pipeline that creates jobs in SimPro and writes status back. In-house system CLIENT SIDE BUILT BY OWEN Secure pipeline SimPro JOB SYSTEM JOB FILE · SFTP CREATES JOB STATUS WRITTEN BACK
Consulting engagement · Secure data pipeline

A secure bridge between an in-house system and SimPro

£36,000/yr the entire contract automated: jobs, status updates and invoicing.
The engagement

Engaged by a client who needed their own in-house system to exchange job data with SimPro. I reviewed both ends, found there was no common language between them, and specified a controlled data path to carry the work.

The inefficiency

With nothing connecting the two systems, every piece of job data moved by hand. The manual step was slow, error-prone, and left no reliable view of status across the two platforms.

What I built

A secure file pipeline on AWS that receives job data over SFTP, auto-creates the SimPro jobs, and writes status updates back out as the work progresses. Access is locked down and the data path is controlled end to end.

The impact

Two systems never designed to talk now stay in real-time sync. The manual step and the errors that came with it were removed.

AWS Transfer FamilyLambdaDynamoDBSQSXML
Consulting engagement · Back-office portal

A back-office portal that automated the post and opened the black box

£35,000/yr around a full admin role, with reporting and full visibility on top.
The engagement

Brought in to a client whose back office ran on email. I reviewed how work arrived and was processed, then built a custom portal to run the whole operation from one place.

The inefficiency

Up to 100 work orders a day arrived as PDFs by email, each one keyed in by hand. The automations a business like this leans on were also black boxes, with no way for staff to see what they were doing.

What I built

A custom online portal that ingests the PDF work orders and turns them into jobs automatically, hosts the bespoke reports the team needs, and lets staff see inside and audit every automation I built for them. Nothing hidden.

The impact

Up to 100 work orders a day handled with no manual entry, the equivalent of a full admin role, plus reporting and a level of visibility into the automation the team never had before.

Custom portalPDF parsingReportingAudit visibility
Up to 100 PDF work orders a day arrive by email and are turned into jobs by a custom portal that staff can also see inside and audit. Email inbox PDF WORK ORDERS BUILT BY OWEN Back-office portal Jobs AUTO-CREATED Staff VIEW & AUDIT 100 / DAY AUTO-CREATES
Staff drop an invoice into a portal that parses it straight into the CRM with the data captured correctly. Drop invoice PDF OR PHOTO BUILT BY OWEN Invoice portal AUTO-PARSE CRM CLEAN DATA DROP PARSED IN
Consulting engagement · Invoice automation

Invoices into the CRM the moment they are dropped

£15,000/yr daily invoice keying, and the mis-entries that came with it, gone.
The engagement

Reviewed where the finance admin time was going, and built a portal to take the manual keying out of invoice handling.

The inefficiency

Staff were typing invoices into the CRM by hand every day. It was slow, and a steady source of mis-entries that someone then had to find and fix.

What I built

A portal where staff drop an invoice and it is parsed straight into the CRM automatically, with the data captured correctly the first time.

The impact

Hours of daily data entry removed, and the mis-entries that came with it gone, so the numbers in the CRM can be trusted.

Custom portalDocument parsingCRMData quality
Consulting engagement · Lead capture

Capturing every Checkatrade lead the moment it lands

£2,000/yr every enquiry into the CRM automatically, none left to go cold.
The engagement

Brought in to stop leads being lost. I reviewed how new business arrived from Checkatrade and reached SimPro, and specified a capture point to close the gap.

The inefficiency

New leads were copied from Checkatrade into SimPro by hand. At volume the manual step was slow to action and easy to drop or mistype, so live enquiries were at real risk of going cold.

What I built

An endpoint that captures each new lead the instant it is created and writes it straight into SimPro, with no manual step in between.

The impact

Leads are now handled in real time. Admin time is freed for work that genuinely needs a person, and the errors that came with re-keying are gone.

API GatewayLambdaSQSWebhooks
Checkatrade sends a new lead in real time to an endpoint that writes it straight into SimPro as a lead. Checkatrade LEAD SOURCE BUILT BY OWEN Capture endpoint SimPro lead JOB SYSTEM NEW LEAD REAL TIME WRITES LEAD
Foreman is a central hub connected to five channels: SimPro, Microsoft Teams, WhatsApp, Phone and Email. SimPro JOB SYSTEM Microsoft Teams INTERNAL WhatsApp CUSTOMER Phone VOICE Email INBOX BUILT BY OWEN Foreman OPERATIONAL BRAIN
Coming soon · Foreman AI

Soon, the entire back office runs itself.

The pattern

I have reworked back offices one link at a time, for business after business, until the next step became inevitable.

What is coming

Not another integration. An AI employee that runs your whole back office, end to end, and never clocks off. Built as Foreman AI Limited (Companies House SC883523).

Status

Coming soon.

AI agentsSimProMicrosoft TeamsWhatsAppEmail
Built secure

Built by someone who studies how systems get broken.

I am an Ethical Hacking graduate from Abertay University, where I finished with a 95% average. When I build something that touches your operational data, I build it the way a security person would want it built: least access, controlled data paths, and nothing left loose.

For a business moving worker, candidate or payroll data between systems, that is not a nice-to-have. It is the difference between an efficiency win and a new risk. The point of automating a process is to make it both faster and safer than it was by hand.

About

Who you would be working with

I am Owen Reid. I build operational software and automation, mostly on AWS (Lambda, API Gateway, DynamoDB, SQS and Transfer Family), and I am the founder of Foreman AI Limited (Companies House SC883523).

My approach is hands-on rather than theoretical. I find a real bottleneck in a real business, work out what it is costing with the people who live it, and build the secure system that removes it. If you want to see the rest of what I have built, the full portfolio is here.

If you already suspect something is inefficient, let us look at it.

That instinct is usually right, and it is exactly the conversation I am good at. No obligation: I will come in, look properly, and tell you honestly what I see, including if the answer is to leave it alone.

Email me → Connect on LinkedIn