Onsite Scoping Capture — v0.1

Goal

Adequately scope onsite team size and count to ensure superior delivery and customer success without cost overruns and rework.

How to use

• Duplicate this doc for each visit. Rename: Onsite Scoping — <Customer> — <Date>.
• Fill metadata before you arrive. Walk the facility. Fill sections in order.
• Photos: create a Google Drive folder per visit. Paste folder/file links into the relevant rows. Do not upload directly into Coda.
• If you find an area you didn't expect, duplicate an Area block on the Per-Area page.
• Wrap-up section: fill it in before leaving while customer is nearby. Easier to ask one more question now than email them tomorrow.
• Form Feedback section at the end: tell us what was hard, missing, or annoying. We use it to revise this template.

Quality bar

• Able to fully plan and scope with minimal follow-up interactions.
• Better to over-capture and label "low confidence" than to skip something.
• Required photos: video walkthrough (whole facility), area overview (each area), bay straight-on + angle + bay close-ups (every bay), mixed-SKU evidence (each area).

Sections

1. Visit Metadata + Pre-Visit Intake
2. First Look
3. People & Roles
4. Facility-Wide Checks
5. Per-Area Capture
6. Wrap-Up + v0.1 Form Feedback

Template version: v0.1 · Owner: Mat (mat@arda.cards) · Built 2026-05-07 · Iterating off Kyle's first-visit feedback

Visit Metadata

Pre-Visit Intake

Fill in before you arrive, using whatever the customer has shared. Mark Unknown for anything you can't get pre-visit — confirm during the walk.

First Look

Goal: in the first 30 minutes, get the lay of the land. Walk with the primary contact. Ask, listen, capture.

Business overview

Prompt: What does this facility do? Manufacturing / distribution / both / something else? Roughly how many SKUs, how many people, what's the daily rhythm? Write 2–4 sentences.

Your answer:

Areas list

List every distinct area in the facility. An "area" is a functional zone with its own workflow (e.g., Receiving, Die Cutter, Aftermarket, Tool Crib). You'll fill out per-area detail later. Add rows as you discover more.

Site sketch

Make a simple sketch of the facility layout. Pencil on iPad in Notes app, or paper photo, or annotated overview photo — whatever's fastest. Mark:

• Walk lines (how product flows: receiving → storage → production → packing → shipping)
• Doors (loading dock, ped entry, between-area doors)
• Staging areas (where deliveries land before putaway)
• Candidate zones for new shelving (where we'd add capacity)
• Each area labeled with its name from the table above

Sketch: paste the image below or link to a Drive file.

Drive link to sketch (if hosted there):

Video walkthrough

Record a single continuous walkthrough covering the flow: receiving → storage → production → packing/shipping. Aim for 5–15 minutes. Cover all aisles. Narrate what you're seeing. Upload to Loom (preferred) or Drive.

Video link:

Notes from video: things to call out, gaps you didn't capture in the video, customer running commentary worth re-watching.

People & Roles

Goal: understand who does what today, who knows what, and who's going to make Arda stick after we leave. Implementations succeed or fail on the people, not the parts.

Headcount

How many people interact with parts on a typical day? (Rough count — anyone who picks, receives, orders, audits, etc. Doesn't have to be precise.)

Anything else worth knowing about the people

Friction between roles? Anyone openly skeptical? Anyone retiring soon? Anyone who'll be the loudest objector and needs to be brought along early?

Change leadership concerns

Implementations stick or stall on whether someone inside the customer is willing to push the new system. Capture the friction signals you see and hear during the visit:

• Who is openly skeptical or resistant? Why?
• Anyone retiring, leaving, or stepping back during the install window?
• Anyone whose current job becomes easier or harder under the new workflow? (Both groups need different handling.)
• Who is the loudest objector likely to be? What is their root concern (workload, status, control)?
• What past tools or initiatives have been tried and abandoned here? What killed them?

Notes:

Facility-Wide Checks

Goal: capture the things that don't change area-to-area. Answer once for the whole facility.

Connectivity

Site safety & access

Heavy / awkward items

Are there items we can't move alone during install? Anything >50 lb, oversized, fragile-but-bulky, or requires a forklift / pallet jack.

Existing systems

Current reorder workflow

Walk through how a reorder happens today, end-to-end. Who notices the need? How do they communicate it? How does the order get placed? How is it approved? What tools do they use? Capture photos of artifacts only when they help explain (paper forms, whiteboards, screens) — this isn't a photo checklist, it's a narrative.

Your narrative (3–8 sentences):

Photos worth capturing (paste links):

Customer's stated pain points

What hurts today? Ask: "If you could fix one thing about how you manage parts, what would it be?" Then: "What's the second thing?" Capture verbatim where possible. This feeds the implementation pitch and the investment-reasons rationale later.

Per-Area Capture

Goal: for each functional area, capture the photo coverage and the space/shelving context. Repeat for every area in the Areas list. If you find more areas than blocks below, duplicate an Area block.

How to duplicate an Area block

Select from the area's H2 heading ("Area N — [Name]") through the bottom of its last table, copy, paste below the last block, and renumber. ~30 seconds in Coda's editor on iPad.

Photo coverage required per area

• Required: Area overview (1 wide shot showing the whole zone)
• Required: Bay photos — each bay straight-on + at angle
• Required: Mixed-SKU evidence — any bin/box with >1 SKU inside
• Optional, sample OK: Shelving unit (full frontal)
• Optional, sample OK: Per shelf level
• Optional: Inside-bin photos (representative)

Area 1 — [Name]

Workflow at this area

How does receiving / storage / picking / reordering happen here? 2–3 sentences. Mention any deviation from the facility-wide workflow.

Photo coverage

Existing shelving

SKU size mix (rough %)

Available space for new shelving

Where in this area could we add new shelving? Describe location, rough dimensions (W × D × H), photo. Mark on the site sketch too.

Description + dimensions:

Photo / Drive link:

Outliers / oddities

Anything that doesn't fit standard storage: chemicals, refrigerated, fragile, oversized, high-value lockup, tooling-only, etc.

Notes / concerns

Area 2 — [Name]

Workflow at this area

How does receiving / storage / picking / reordering happen here? 2–3 sentences.

Photo coverage

Existing shelving

SKU size mix (rough %)

Available space for new shelving

Description + dimensions:

Photo / Drive link:

Outliers / oddities

Notes / concerns

Area 3 — [Name]

Workflow at this area

Photo coverage

Existing shelving

SKU size mix (rough %)

Available space for new shelving

Description + dimensions:

Photo / Drive link:

Outliers / oddities

Notes / concerns

Area 4 — [Name]

Workflow at this area

Photo coverage

Existing shelving

SKU size mix (rough %)

Available space for new shelving

Description + dimensions:

Photo / Drive link:

Outliers / oddities

Notes / concerns

Area 5 — [Name]

Workflow at this area

Photo coverage

Existing shelving

SKU size mix (rough %)

Available space for new shelving

Description + dimensions:

Photo / Drive link:

Outliers / oddities

Notes / concerns

Area 6 — [Name]

Workflow at this area

Photo coverage

Existing shelving

SKU size mix (rough %)

Available space for new shelving

Description + dimensions:

Photo / Drive link:

Outliers / oddities

Notes / concerns

Area 7 — [Name]

Workflow at this area

Photo coverage

Existing shelving

SKU size mix (rough %)

Available space for new shelving

Description + dimensions:

Photo / Drive link:

Outliers / oddities

Notes / concerns

Area 8 — [Name]

Workflow at this area

Photo coverage

Existing shelving

SKU size mix (rough %)

Available space for new shelving

Description + dimensions:

Photo / Drive link:

Outliers / oddities

Notes / concerns

Wrap-Up & Form Feedback

Before you leave the site

Complete this section while the customer is still nearby. Easier to ask one more question now than to email them tomorrow.

Open questions for the customer

Before you walk out the door, do you have:

• Customer's existing inventory file? (spreadsheet / ERP export / etc.) — get the file or set up a follow-up to send it
• Photo of any labels / numbering scheme they use today?
• Names + roles + emails for everyone on the People & Roles list?
• Confirmation on heavy-item help arrangement for install day?
• Customer's preferred install date window?
• Anything they think we should know that we didn't ask about?

Anything you think you missed

Walk back through the doc. Any rows blank that should be filled? Any area you didn't quite cover? Note here what to follow up on.

Post-visit output

Fill once you're back at base. This is what gets handed to the implementation team.

v0.1 Form Feedback (the scoper)

This template is v0.1. It will get worse before it gets better unless you tell us what's wrong with it. Be specific and brutal — Mat's promised to revise based on your feedback.