GETMILK

Notes on agentic manufacturing

Thinking out loud about the European supplier graph, MCP, and how AI is reshaping the way products get made.

  • 28 Oct 2026 · 8 min read · Andrii Sukhariev

    How much does an ERP cost for a small manufacturer, and why to connect it rather than replace it

    At prices published in September 2026, ERP licences for a small Portuguese manufacturer run from about €26 a month (Sage 50, no production module) to €95.30 per user a month (Business Central Premium), excluding VAT. Licences are the smaller part: in GETMILK's worked five-year example for a 50-person plant, replacing the ERP costs about €92,900 against about €40,000 for keeping it, cleaning its data and connecting it to AI assistants.

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  • 27 Oct 2026 · 7 min read · Andrii Sukhariev

    Why most AI pilots fail in factories, and how to pick the first agent

    Siemens Portugal's CEO estimates that only 10–15% of companies experimenting with AI get real operational impact, and blames unstructured data, unchanged processes and tools nobody uses. The first agent should pass four tests: enough hours, data that already exists, mistakes that can be caught before they cost anything, and a person approving every output. RFQ intake and quote drafting usually pass; production scheduling usually does not.

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  • 26 Oct 2026 · 9 min read · Andrii Sukhariev

    Your best engineer retires next year: capture what they know before they leave

    Start now, in three layers: record the engineer doing real work, turn their rules of thumb into written tables, and put an AI agent on top that answers from those documents with sources while a person approves. It is urgent because Portugal has one of the oldest workforces in the EU, with 99 workers over 54 for every 100 under 35, and 88% of Portuguese firms name the availability of skilled staff as an obstacle to investment.

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  • 23 Oct 2026 · 7 min read · Andrii Sukhariev

    How much of your product is 'Made in Europe'? The Industrial Accelerator Act and your bill of materials

    Under the Commission's Industrial Accelerator Act proposal of 4 March 2026, an electric vehicle bought with public money must be assembled in the EU with at least 70% of its non-battery component value of Union origin, decided part by part by EU customs rules. In an illustrative drone-motor bill of materials, EU-sourced parts are 53% of the value, 64% if the magnets come from an EU plant, and the motor itself can still count as fully EU-origin. The act is not law yet.

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  • 20 Oct 2026 · 9 min read · Andrii Sukhariev

    Working solar panels are shredded while 655 million people live without power

    No EU or Portuguese law orders working solar panels destroyed, yet in 2023 EU countries reported only about 142 of the 58,474 tonnes of panels they collected as prepared for re-use, and Portugal reused none of its 328 tonnes. Meanwhile 655 million people had no electricity in 2024. The waste label, a recycling target that shredding meets, per-panel export tests and the price of testing make shredding the cheapest legal exit.

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  • 19 Oct 2026 · 9 min read · Andrii Sukhariev

    AI agents in a factory: seven use cases that pay back

    Seven agents pay back in a typical Portuguese plant, all around the order: RFQ intake, quote drafting, drawing checks, supplier lookups, order-status answers, certificate packs and a knowledge assistant. At 300 RFQs a month, intake plus quote drafting frees about 150 hours, worth €2,475 at Eurostat's €16.5 an hour, against a model bill of about €64. Below roughly 100 RFQs a month, hours alone rarely justify the build.

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  • 9 Oct 2026 · 8 min read · Andrii Sukhariev

    Rare-earth magnets after 10 November: what motor and drone makers in Portugal should do now

    China's one-year pause on its October 2025 rare-earth export controls ends on 10 November 2026 unless Beijing extends it; the April 2025 licences for dysprosium and terbium never stopped. The EU gets 98% of its rare-earth magnets from China and we found no magnet maker in Portugal. In a typical 10-motor drone prototype, custom magnets are the longest lead item (3 to 6 weeks) and none has a maker in Portugal.

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  • 8 Oct 2026 · 11 min read · Andrii Sukhariev

    MCP for your ERP: how to connect Odoo, SAP, PHC, Primavera, Sage or Business Central to ChatGPT, Claude and Copilot (2026)

    An MCP server lets ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot and your own agents ask your ERP a fixed set of approved questions instead of guessing. In September 2026 Business Central and Odoo ship official servers, Sage X3 has one in early access and SAP Business One offers sample code, while we found none from Cegid for PHC, Primavera or Eticadata. A read-only server built on the ERP's own connection takes from hours to about three weeks, and GETMILK builds one from €2,900.

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