We turn operational noise into signal.
Halvexa is a business process and manufacturing automation consultancy for UK factories and SMEs. We build the sensors, dashboards and automated workflows that take scattered shop-floor and back-office data and make it readable — one clear picture instead of six disconnected systems. Most people are surprised how little it takes to get the first piece running.
Because it’s simple to set up — one process at a time, on systems you already run — there’s no big-platform price tag to absorb before you see anything working.
Nothing off-the-shelf. Every dashboard, sensor and workflow is built around what your business actually needs to see — not a generic template with your logo on it.
Simplicity is what makes the timeline short. A narrow first project means less to build, less to test, and less that can go wrong before it’s live.
Fridge and freezer monitoring — usually the easiest place to start.
Cold storage is where a lot of food businesses lose money quietly: a door left ajar overnight, a compressor failing over a weekend, stock written off before anyone knew there was a problem. It’s also one of the simplest things to automate.
What gets captured automatically
- Temperature every few minutes, not once or twice a day on a clipboard
- Door-open duration, so a compressor working overtime gets flagged, not just a full failure
- Instant alerts to a phone when a reading drifts outside your set range — including overnight and weekends, when nobody’s walking past to notice
- A digital compliance log, ready for an EHO inspection instead of a folder of paper temperature sheets
Automatic reject counting on a production line.
Most lines still catch faults the same way: an operator eyeballing product as it goes past, tallying rejects on paper if they get counted at all. A photo sensor and a counter turn that into something consistent and measurable.
What gets captured automatically
- Every unit counted as it passes the sensor, not tallied by hand at the end of a shift
- Faults flagged and diverted the moment the sensor catches them, rather than found downstream
- Reject rate tracked hour by hour, so a spike gets caught the same shift, not the following week
- A running log of when and where rejects happen, making it far easier to trace back to a cause
One line, from machine to decision.
Same four steps on every project — we just build them out of whatever mix of hardware and software your operation actually needs.
The reasons teams put off automation don’t hold up in practice.
Manufacturing automation has a reputation for being expensive, disruptive and slow. In practice, most of that comes from projects that try to do everything at once. One process at a time, it’s a much smaller job than people expect.
You don’t need one. A single sensor on one machine, or one automated report, is a small, contained project — not a six-figure platform. Most engagements start there and expand only once the first piece is paying for itself.
That’s rarely true in practice. Automation gets built on top of what’s already running — spreadsheets, an ageing ERP, a POS system — rather than replacing it. If it can export a number, it can usually feed a dashboard.
Every project runs alongside the existing process first. Nothing manual gets switched off until the automated version has been proven — usually for weeks — so there’s no point at which the floor is relying on something untested.
The best automation is invisible: a report that used to take an afternoon now just exists every morning. There’s rarely a new interface to learn — the workflow just runs, and the result lands somewhere people already look.
Common questions
What that actually looks like, week by week
A realistic shape for a first project — not a guarantee, but the pattern most engagements follow.
Discovery call
A free 20-minute conversation about what’s actually slowing your team down — no proposal deck required to get a straight answer.
Scoped to one process
One machine, one workflow, or one dashboard — narrow enough to build properly and prove quickly.
First pilot live
Running alongside your existing process, not replacing it yet — so there’s nothing to lose if something needs adjusting.
Review, then expand
Once it’s proven, decide together whether to hand over the manual version, extend to more machines, or stop there.
Enterprise automation platforms are built for enterprise problems.
Most of the well-known names in this space are excellent — and are built for factories running hundreds of machines across multiple sites. If that’s not you yet, you end up paying for scale that you don’t need and waiting on an implementation timeline built for someone else’s business.
Three ways in — usually all three end up connected.
Whether it’s factory automation on the shop floor or business process automation in the back office, most operations don’t need a platform overhaul. They Just need the gap between what’s happening on site and what’s visible in the office closed, one piece at a time.
Shop-floor monitoring
Sensors on ovens, mixers, lines and vehicles. Real-time output, downtime and utilisation — with early warning before a machine fails, not after.
Operations dashboards
Sales, stock, logistics and production pulled into one screen. Built on the systems you already run — no rip-and-replace, no new licence sprawl.
See what we can track →Process automation
The manual reconciliation, reporting and admin that eats a day a week, rebuilt as something that runs quietly in the background instead.
See how systems connect →Gaffer — job management for the trades.
The same thinking, packaged. Gaffer is a bespoke job management software for electricians, plumbers, joiners and every other trade: quotes that chase themselves, invoices that raise themselves, and a straight answer on which jobs actually made money.
The admin does itself
Unanswered quotes get followed up. Overdue invoices get chased against each customer’s own terms. Nobody has to be the bad guy about the money.
Software built for using in a van, not a desk
Photograph a supplier invoice at the merchant’s counter and the figures are read off it. Attach a certificate from your phone and email it to the customer.
Profit per job, not per month
Real hours against quoted, real material cost against the estimate. You find out a job’s losing money while it’s still running — not months later when the accountant tells you.
See Gaffer →We’ve done this inside a real factory, not just a slide deck.
Halvexa born out of hands-on work inside a multi-site UK food manufacturer — building the tools from the ground up whilst the business kept running. That means we design for the constraints real operations actually have: costly legacy systems, tight margins, and teams with no time to learn something new.
- 6 → 1 Separate spreadsheets and systems replaced by a single live operations dashboard
- Live Driver, production and stock-reconciliation tools running daily in production, not pilot
- 0 Rip-and-replace projects — every build works with the systems already in place
Tell us what’s still running on a spreadsheet.
A short conversation is usually enough to tell you whether this is worth doing. No proposal decks, no discovery retainer just to get a straight answer.