Estimate the annual value, payback period and return on investment of an AI improvement engagement, based on the capacity it releases from repetitive work.
Indicative estimate only, not a guarantee. A Lean diagnostic produces a precise, defensible figure by mapping your actual value streams before any target is agreed.
Most AI business cases fail because they start with the technology and work backwards to a justification. This calculator does the opposite: it starts with the waste already in your operation, the repetitive, rules-based work that consumes skilled people's time, and estimates what releasing that capacity is worth.
From that annual value, the tool derives the three numbers that actually decide an AI investment:
An engagement is cost-neutral when the measurable return in the first year equals or exceeds its total cost. We price every Boxtree engagement so that Year-1 value at least covers the cost before any build begins, if the numbers don't stack up, we don't proceed. The defaults above are deliberately conservative; in practice a Lean diagnostic usually finds more recoverable capacity than a headline estimate suggests.
Industry research consistently finds that the large majority of AI initiatives struggle to demonstrate a return, not because the technology fails, but because it is deployed against problems that were never quantified. The fix is a disciplined, problem-led sequence: map the value stream, quantify the waste, agree measurable targets, and only then build. That is exactly the method this calculator approximates, and exactly what a Boxtree engagement delivers.
This tool gives you a directional estimate. A Lean AI Discovery turns it into a measurable, agreed target, mapped to your real processes and guaranteed cost-neutral in Year 1.
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