Background
Hotstart is a manufacturing company specializing in thermal management and engine heating solutions. Known for being smart, flexible, and committed to continuous improvement, Hotstart recognized early that AI and automation could create meaningful opportunities across its business operations.
Rather than approaching AI as a response to a single isolated use case, Hotstart took a proactive, organization-wide approach. The company assembled a cross-departmental AI committee of approximately 12 members from engineering, HR, IT, and sales, with executive sponsorship from its CTO.
This combination of leadership support and department-level participation gave Hotstart a strong foundation for identifying practical AI opportunities. The people closest to day-to-day operations could explore where automation might have the greatest impact while building the skills needed to support adoption within their own teams.
Challenges
Hotstart saw clear opportunities to improve existing business processes through AI and automation but needed a structured path for turning those ideas into practical solutions.
The employees who best understood the processes that could benefit from automation were not necessarily developers. Giving those subject matter experts the tools, knowledge, and confidence to build useful automations required a hands-on approach that connected business expertise with technical capabilities.
Hotstart also wanted its AI initiatives to account for governance, data protection, and access-control requirements from the beginning. Connecting AI tools with existing business systems, including the company’s Infor SyteLine ERP environment, required careful consideration of how users would access approved data while continuing to respect established roles and permissions.
Solutions
IntelliTect partnered with Hotstart on a phased AI training and enablement engagement conducted over approximately seven weeks. The engagement was designed to establish a common foundation, address governance considerations, and help participants begin building practical AI solutions themselves.
The IntelliTect team included Dan Olvera as technical trainer, Wendy Corbin providing business, manufacturing, and GDPR expertise, and Rob McFarland contributing automation and marketing experience.
The engagement included several focused phases:
1. Copilot Studio Training
A two-hour foundational training session introduced the full AI committee to Microsoft Copilot Studio and established a shared baseline of knowledge across participating departments.
Committee members learned how Copilot Studio agents are structured, how they can interact with business information and processes, and how employees outside traditional development roles can begin building useful AI-powered experiences.
2. Governance and Data Protection
Focused working sessions with the IT team explored governance, data protection, and GDPR considerations relevant to Hotstart’s AI initiatives.
These discussions helped the team consider how future AI projects could be developed within appropriate organizational guardrails while maintaining oversight of data access and use.
3. Infor SyteLine Integration
IntelliTect led a dedicated working session focused on connecting Copilot Studio with Hotstart’s Infor SyteLine ERP environment.
The resulting custom connector enabled approved SyteLine data to be accessed through Copilot Studio while aligning access with Hotstart’s existing roles and permissions. This approach allowed the team to explore AI-enabled use cases without introducing a separate authorization model for the ERP environment.
4. Collaborative Building and Ideation
The full committee reconvened for a final hands-on working session.
Participants built prototype HR FAQ agents, explored automation ideas from across the organization, and developed a prioritized list of potential projects for continued development.
The sessions were deliberately hands-on so committee members could move beyond simply understanding the technology and begin developing the practical skills needed to experiment, build, and support AI adoption within their respective departments.
Outcome
By the conclusion of the engagement, Hotstart had moved from exploring AI opportunities to actively building and prioritizing them.
The AI committee gained practical experience with Copilot Studio, developed prototype HR FAQ agents, established an integration approach for working with SyteLine data, and created a prioritized pipeline of potential automation projects spanning multiple departments.
Just as importantly, committee members developed a stronger foundation for evaluating and building AI solutions themselves. Rather than relying exclusively on a centralized technical team, Hotstart now has internal participants across several departments who better understand how AI and automation can be applied to the processes they work with every day.
The engagement also identified opportunities for continued collaboration between Hotstart and IntelliTect as the company evaluates and develops future AI and automation initiatives.
With executive sponsorship, cross-departmental participation, governance considerations, and hands-on technical experience in place, Hotstart is well positioned to continue expanding its use of AI at a pace that fits its business needs.
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