Operators who build the systems, not consultants who describe them.
Most people who sell automation have never run an operation, and it shows in what they hand over: a deck and a bill. We do the mapping and we do the building, which means we have to live with whatever we recommend.
A small team that goes deep on a few operations at a time.
Tomato Automate is an operations and automation consultancy working with businesses that have outgrown the way they used to run — the point where the operation still works, but only because a handful of people are holding it together in their heads.
We are deliberately small. Every engagement has one of us inside it, watching how the work moves and writing what we see, because the interesting problems are never in the org chart. That limits how many businesses we can take on at once, and we would rather that than a bench of people learning your operation on your time.
- BasedHudson Valley, New York. We work with operations across the US and internationally.
- IndustriesFreight & logistics, manufacturing, property management, professional services.
- Contactoffice@tomatoautomate.com · +1 845 682 9186
Six things we hold to, including the ones that cost us work.
Map before you build
Nobody can quote honestly on an operation they have not seen. Every engagement starts with the week that makes the work visible, and sometimes that week is where it ends.
Lean it out first
Automating a bloated process gives you a bloated process that runs faster. We cut the steps that earn nothing before we build anything, and there is usually less left to build than expected.
Nothing interrupts the work
One workflow at a time, running alongside the manual version until it has handled the exceptions. There is no morning where your team arrives to a different operation.
People keep the judgment
Anything that commits you stops for a human. The system gathers and drafts; a person decides. That is not a limitation we are working around, it is the design.
Say no when it is no
If the process changes every time, or the coordination is one afternoon a week, the build will not pay for itself. We would rather tell you in week one than in month six.
You own all of it
The systems, the accounts, the documentation, the build specs. If we stopped working together tomorrow, everything keeps running and you have the papers for it.
Why the map is yours either way.
The Redprint is sold on its own, and once you have it the build specs are yours to use however you like, with us or without us. People find that odd for a consultancy, and in the short term it is a worse business decision than holding the specs back until you sign for a build.
We do it because it is the only way the first conversation can be honest. If the map says the build is not worth it, we would rather you had that in writing than a proposal we talked you into. And on the occasions the numbers are good, nobody has to be persuaded — the ranking has already made the argument.
- 01How the work actually moves through your business today
- 02What you have already tried, and where it came apart
- 03Whether there is enough here to be worth building
You will be talking to the people who would actually build it. If there is something worth doing, we will tell you what it would look like. If there is not, then we build a relationship.