# Adopt IoTReady one layer at a time

> The order we recommend for rolling IoTReady out - Engine, then AI and analytics, then the mobile app, then devices - and how to do it without overwhelming the people on the shop floor.

- **Page** - https://iotready.com/docs/platform/adopting-iotready
- **Book** - [Platform](https://iotready.com/docs/platform.md)

Film: [How teams replace paper and Excel with four layers](/media/adoption-flow.mp4)

_Four layers replace paper and Excel, one at a time. You don't need all four on day one._

IoTReady has four layers. You don't need all of them on day one, and teams that
try to switch them all on at once usually end up with a floor of people who
distrust the new system and a pile of paper next to it.

So go in this order, and start with the layer that hurts most.

1. **IoTReady Engine**, our platform. One record per item, in one place.
2. **AI + analytics.** Custom rules and reports, built by describing them.
3. **Mobile app.** Operators follow the steps on a phone.
4. **IoT.** Scales, scanners and sensors capture the data.

Each layer works without the ones after it. Each one is easier because the one
before it is already right.

## 1. Engine

This is the warehouse management layer: your SKUs, locations, orders and stock in
one workspace, instead of spread across sheets and a few people's heads.

Load what you have, install the apps that fit your business, and let your office
staff work in the portal. Nobody on the floor needs to touch anything yet.

Stay here until the numbers in Engine match what's on the shelf, and the people
in the office have stopped keeping a second copy somewhere else.

## 2. AI and analytics

Once the records are trustworthy, ask them things. Describe a rule, a report or
a check to the Engineer, the AI built into Engine, in plain language - "tell me when a PO is three days
late", "show dispatches by customer for this month" - and review what it
proposes before it goes live.

You can also [connect Claude or ChatGPT](https://iotready.com/docs/platform/ai-connectors.md) and ask
questions from there.

Rules are written in Starlark. To read one as a graph, or try the language first, open the free [Starlark editor](https://iotready.com/tools/starlark-editor.md).

This layer is still all office work. Move on when you're regularly asking the
data questions and the answer to most of them is "someone has to type this in
faster".

## 3. Mobile app

Now the floor gets involved. Operators follow the steps of an activity on a phone
or a handheld: scan the crate, confirm the count, move on. The rules you built
in the last layer are what tell them green or red on the spot.

Pick one activity to start with. Receiving is usually the best one, because
everything downstream depends on it being right.

## 4. IoT

Last, take the typing out. A scale sends the weight, a scanner reads the code, a
sensor reports the temperature, and the operator confirms instead of enters.
There's no point automating a step until a person has done it by hand and you
know it's the right step.

See the [hardware book](https://iotready.com/docs/hardware.md) for the devices.

## Don't overwhelm the shop floor

The people who matter most in this rollout are the ones who never open the
portal. A few habits keep them with you.

**One change at a time.** Put one new activity in front of one station on one
shift. Let it settle before you add the next. If an operator can't tell you what
changed this month, you changed too much.

**Ask them first.** The person on the receiving dock knows which step gets
skipped and why. Build the activity around what they tell you, not around the
org chart.

**Keep the steps few.** If the screen can fill something in, it should. Every
field you ask a person to type is a place for the new system to lose to a
notebook.

**Run in parallel, briefly.** Keep the old way going for a short, agreed time
while the new records are checked against it. Then stop, on a date you said out
loud. A parallel run with no end date is just doing the work twice forever.

**Fix the first week's complaints in the first week.** The fastest way to lose a
shift is to leave their first problem open. You can change a rule or a step
yourself without a release, so do it.

> **Not sure which layer you're on?**
>
> Ask the Engineer. Tell it where you are and what's slowing people down, and it
> can suggest the next thing to set up.

Write to <support@iotready.com> if you want help
planning the order for your site.