AI Strategy & Adoption
AI roadmaps that start with your processes, not the tools. We assess readiness, sequence investments with the Process-to-AI Pyramid, and manage the adoption so gains stick.
Explore capabilityMANAGEMENT & TECHNOLOGY CONSULTING
AI that worksstarts with processthat works.
We bring Lean discipline to AI adoption: standardize the work first, then automate, then apply AI where it pays.
Independent and senior-led. Founded by a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt with more than ten years leading enterprise operations and technology change.
Automation amplifies whatever it touches.
Most transformation programs fail on the process underneath them, not on the technology. Tools bolted onto undocumented, inconsistent work make a broken process run faster and cost more to change.
We work in the opposite order. Eliminate the steps that add no value, simplify what survives, standardize the best-known way of working, and only then automate. Clean processes produce clean data, and clean data is what AI needs to deliver.
You cannot automate what you have not standardized.
From process foundation to production AI.
AI strategy, agentic systems, governance, data and analytics, cloud and enterprise systems, cybersecurity, and process excellence, sequenced so each layer holds.
Agentic AI & Automation
Agentic systems designed to act safely: multi-agent orchestration, secure-by-design AI surfaces, and RPA estates modernized into agents that do real work under real controls.
Explore capabilityAI Governance, Risk & Compliance
Governance that runs as an operating cadence, not a binder: risk-tiered review, audit-ready evidence, and alignment with the EU AI Act and NIST AI RMF.
Data & Analytics
Data engineering, BI, and predictive modeling that answer operating questions: pipelines you can trust, dashboards in Power BI, Tableau, and Fabric, and models built for decisions.
Cloud & Enterprise Systems
Cloud modernization and ERP and enterprise systems integration, sequenced so the platform serves the process: fewer manual handoffs, cleaner data, systems that talk to each other.
Cybersecurity & Compliance
Security posture and compliance surfaces addressed early, delivered with a specialist partner network: assessments, remediation roadmaps, and controls designed into every AI and automation engagement.
Process Excellence & Operations
Lean Six Sigma applied to office and operations work: value-stream mapping, SOPs and standard work, supply chain delivery, and waste removed before any technology arrives.
Three frameworks carry every engagement.
Authored by our founder, they give an organization a shared language for where it stands and what comes next.
ESSA
Eliminate, simplify, standardize, automate: four gates every process passes in strict order before technology is applied.
Read the frameworkThe Process-to-AI Pyramid
A three-layer model: standards as the foundation, automation as the accelerator, AI as the multiplier.
Read the frameworkThe Process Maturity Model
Five levels from ad hoc to AI-optimized, with one threshold that matters: standardize before you invest in automation.
Read the frameworkAgents work inside the tools you already use.
Claude-based agents run the routine work inside Slack: triage, categorization, reporting. People keep the decisions, and every action is logged.
See the work#operations
Agents and people, one channel
GO
Guest Ops2:41 PM
The guest in unit 12 says the door code isn't working, and check-in is at 3:00.
Steelworth Ops AgentApp2:41 PM
Reissued a fresh code and sent it to the guest. The lock battery is running low, so I opened a maintenance task for tomorrow morning and logged the incident.
Code reissued · guest notified · maintenance scheduled · trail logged
Month-end
FI
Finance9:04 AM
How did the month close?
Steelworth Ops AgentApp9:05 AM
Closed. Every transaction is categorized against the chart of accounts and the month-end pack is posted in #finance. Two refunds are flagged for a human decision in this thread.
The discipline is the differentiator.
Process rigor before AI
We standardize before we automate. That order is the difference between AI that compounds good work and AI that cements the mess.
Practitioners who build
Our background is the operating floor and the codebase: supply chains, order-to-cash, enterprise infrastructure. Engagements end in working systems, not slideware.
Governance from day one
Risk tiering, audit trails, and responsible-AI review are designed in from the first week, not retrofitted after an incident.
Senior attention throughout
There is no bench of juniors learning on your budget. The people who scope the work deliver the work.
Every engagement runs the same arc.
01
Diagnose
We walk the process as it actually runs, not as the SOP describes it, and place each critical process on the maturity model. The gap between the two is where the value hides.
02
Design
We run the target processes through ESSA: eliminate what adds no value, simplify what survives, standardize the best-known way of working, and specify what has earned automation.
03
Deliver
We build the automation and AI on that standardized foundation, with governance and measurement in place, and hand your team standard work it can own and improve.
The problems change by industry. The method does not.
We serve financial services, retail and consumer, manufacturing and supply chain, technology, healthcare and life sciences, energy and utilities, the public sector, and real estate and hospitality.
Hector Gonzalez-Stahl
Founder, Steelworth. Lean Six Sigma Black Belt.
Led by an operator.
Steelworth was founded by Hector Gonzalez-Stahl, a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt with more than ten years leading enterprise change across operations, supply chain, and technology infrastructure, including roles at JPMorgan Chase, The Home Depot, and Dell Technologies. He also builds and operates his own ventures, including an enterprise property-management SaaS platform and a multi-market short-term-rental operation.
Lean Six Sigma Black Belt
Six Sigma Academy Amsterdam, 2024.
M.S., AI Management & Policy
Purdue University, in progress.
B.S., Industrial Engineering
Texas A&M University, with Business Administration coursework.
The first conversation is a diagnosis, not a pitch.
Tell us where work is slow, inconsistent, or resisting automation, and we will tell you where it sits on the maturity model and what to fix first.