How the work really runs lives in forty heads, six spreadsheets and a WhatsApp group. Portal listens to the people who do it, draws the map, and shows where the hours go. So you know what to fix before you spend on it.
Every pallet that comes in, I check the temperature log, write the number on the sheet and type it into Excel at the end of the day.
Cold store clerk, 07:40
I ring four plants every morning for prices.
Buyer
I put the orders in Excel, then Accounts invoices from the CMR.
Sales lead
Certificates go through the vet's office.
We only find out at the stock count.
The cutting plan is on the whiteboard by six.
Boning room foreman
I wait at the plant until the papers are signed.
I chase the CMRs before I can invoice.
Only one of us knows the credit limits.
Owner
Carrier quotes come by phone, email and WhatsApp.
Mondays it is sixty pallets, not forty.
We weigh every box twice, once for us, once for them.
Carcasses come in at five and we grade them by eye.
Italy wants the price list by Friday.
Buying
Boning room
Cold storeBooking in610 h a year
Sales
Transport and papers
Finance
The same company, as a map.
Six areas, 15 processes, every step with its time. Booking in alone is about 610 hours a year.
An example company. The figures are illustrative.
I ring four plants every morning for prices.
BuyingAsk plants for prices20 min
The cutting plan is on the whiteboard by six.
Boning roomWrite the cutting plan30 min
Every pallet that comes in, I check the temperature log, write the number on the sheet and type it into Excel at the end of the day.
Cold storeCheck the pallet2 minBooking in · 610 h a year
I put the orders in Excel, then Accounts invoices from the CMR.
SalesEnter it in Excel6 min
Certificates go through the vet's office.
Transport and papersHealth certificates15 min
I chase the CMRs before I can invoice.
FinanceInvoice from the CMR12 min
Six areas, 15 processes. Booking in alone is about 610 hours a year.
An example company. The figures are illustrative.
01 — The problem
Nobody designed how your company runs. It grew, one workaround at a time: a column added to a sheet, a phone call that became a habit, a step only one person knows. It works, and it lives in people’s heads.
Interviews, then workshops, then a consultant’s diagram. Twelve weeks and a binder, and the binder is wrong by the time it is printed, because the work kept moving while it was being drawn.
Every new system, every automation, every AI pilot is chosen without knowing where the hours actually go. The loudest problem gets the budget, and nobody can say afterwards whether it worked.
You cannot automate what you cannot see.
02 — The turn
One person, one sentence, one ordinary morning. Here is the whole mechanism, compressed into four beats. Every figure on the map starts like this.
Every pallet that comes in, I check the temperature log, write the number on the sheet and type it into Excel at the end of the day.
Claude asks at most four short questions.
A step gets its time. A new step appears.
Booking in
about610hours a year
40 pallets × 3 min × ~305 days
An idea is recorded. It ranks first.
03 — What you hold at the end
i
How the company runs: every process, step, person and system, in 6 areas and 15 processes. Your people correct it in their own words, so it stays true after the first week.
Cold store
Sales
Transport and papers
ii
Where the hours go, process by process: people by hand, people with tools, tools on their own, and what is not timed yet. Every figure says where it came from: who said it, or whether it was counted or measured.
iii
What to build next, ranked by the hours a year each idea gives back, with the effort beside it. When an idea ships, the same steps are measured again, so you can see what it did.
04 — Why this is new
Check each line against the last time someone tried to map your company.
| Until now | With Portal |
|---|---|
| Mapped once, by outsiders, in months | Drafted from one call, corrected by your people every day |
| A diagram nobody opens | A map you can ask a question |
| Times are opinions from a workshop | Every figure is a claim: who said it, counted or measured |
| AI projects picked by enthusiasm | Ideas ranked by the hours a year they give back |
| “Did it work?” answered by a feeling | The same steps, measured before and after |
| Process mapping feels like surveillance | The conversation stays its author’s; others see only what changed |
Portal counts the work in hours: what people do by hand, what they do with tools, and what tools do on their own. When an idea ships, you see which part turns green.
It does not score people. Nobody is ranked, timed or watched.
Read the principlesTell us what your company does. The call becomes the first draft of your map, usually the same day.
We are a pork plant with a trading desk in Lleida, twenty-four of us. We buy carcasses from four plants, bone them, and sell the cuts to Italy and France.
First draft6 areas · 15 processes