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Selected Work

Operational problems rarely arrive neatly labeled. They emerge through unreliable information, inefficient processes, recurring errors, unnecessary effort or systems that no longer support the way the business works.

The examples below draw on work across different industries and operating environments. Some predate the establishment of PyTools and reflect work undertaken by founder Charles Scheepers in previous operational and consulting roles.

Pricing and quotation redesign

When the commercial model itself needed fixing

A specialist services business was winning work regularly, but its pricing was insufficient to reliably cover the cost of delivering it. Complex quotations could also require as much as a full working day to evaluate, price and resource.

The commercial process was rebuilt around actual costs and clearly defined categories of work. Service tiers and fixed pricing structures replaced much of the project-by-project estimation, while historical project data was used to establish realistic delivery timelines. A core group of trusted service providers worked at negotiated rates, allowing most projects to be scoped and offered without repeatedly sourcing and negotiating resources.

These principles were incorporated into a structured quotation process and subsequently into the company's ERP system.

Result

Within approximately three months, virtually every completed project was profitable, including projects that encountered operational difficulties. Complex quotation turnaround fell from as much as a full working day to approximately 30–60 minutes.

What this demonstrates: commercial process analysis, service design, operational standardization and systems implementation.

Establishing reliable inter-operator settlement data

When the installed system couldn't explain the numbers

A telecommunications operator was unable to produce reliable figures for settlement with another network. Its inter-operator billing figures were deviating by more than ZAR 1 million, while months of conventional troubleshooting with the system vendor had failed to establish why known roaming calls were not consistently reaching the billing process.

Controlled test calls confirmed that valid records existed upstream but were not being recognized correctly by the mediation platform. An independent parser was developed to examine the raw network records beyond the fields identified in the available specification. This revealed a previously unused record characteristic that consistently distinguished roaming traffic from local calls.

The classification logic was extensively validated and developed into an automated processing channel that retrieved raw billing records directly from the network, identified the appropriate traffic and supplied it to the downstream interconnect billing system independently of the vendor mediation platform.

Result

Finance gained reliable internal settlement figures, and the independent process remained in production under direct supervision for more than four years.

What this demonstrates: root-cause investigation, independent validation, data integrity, automation and production systems design.

Redesigning a multilingual publishing workflow

When the production process became part of the quality problem

A large multilingual schoolbook program relied heavily on PDF files and comments to move translated content and corrections between linguists, project teams and typesetters. Individual documents could accumulate thousands of comments, while repeated manual transfer of text created additional opportunities for omissions, inconsistencies and production errors under tight publishing deadlines.

Analysis of a 164,000-word portion of the larger program showed significant repetition and partial matches that the existing workflow was not exploiting.

The proposed redesign separated linguistic production from final typesetting. Translation memory, terminology management and structured linguistic review would allow repeated content to be reused and changes to be tracked directly through the translation process. Clean, reviewed copy could then move into typesetting, followed by focused checks of the final layout.

Result

Analysis of the identified repeats and partial matches projected a cost reduction of more than 30%. Using established production data and typesetting experience, the proposed workflow was also projected to improve turnaround time by approximately 40%.

These estimates excluded additional translation-memory matches identified from previous educational material.

What this demonstrates: workflow analysis, process redesign, reuse of existing work, quality controls and evidence-based project modeling.

Building operational controls for regulated work

When good work also had to be demonstrably controlled

A specialist language-services business supplying pharmaceutical clients needed to meet rigorous requirements for process control, traceability and supplier quality. An initial client audit exposed gaps in the formal evidence supporting some existing practices, particularly around training and documented controls.

The operating framework was progressively formalized around documented procedures, controlled project records and clear accountability. Pharmaceutical projects were uniquely identified and retained with the records needed to reconstruct their history, including source material, translation and review stages, linguist qualifications, client terminology and preferences, certifications and relevant training records.

Additional controls protected the integrity of specialized workflows such as translation, independent back-translation and review. Procedures and supporting records were maintained through regular review as requirements and working practices evolved.

Result

The framework supported continued delivery to pharmaceutical clients and repeated supplier audits. Following the initial development period, subsequent audits produced no major findings, minor findings were addressed, and the business consistently retained its approved supplier status.

Periodic professional audits could extend over three to five days, examining procedures, records, contracts, technical controls and working practices in depth.

What this demonstrates: process documentation, operational controls, traceability, quality governance and audit readiness.

Rebuilding trust in operational data

When the report was correct but the underlying data wasn't

A specialist services business used Monday.com to manage projects and record operational and financial information, while invoicing and accounting were maintained separately in Xero.

A request for management reporting exposed a deeper problem. The requested reports could be produced correctly, but the underlying project data could not be reconciled reliably with the accounting records. Years of unrestricted editing, inconsistent naming and formatting, duplicate values and changes to historical project records had progressively undermined the integrity of the operational data.

Xero provided a more dependable financial reference against which historical records could be reconstructed. Over approximately three months, the Monday.com data was cleaned and standardized, with Python and the Monday.com API used to identify, compare and correct inconsistencies at scale.

Controls were then introduced to protect the recovered data quality, including standardized lookup values, tighter access, change monitoring and automated checks.

Result

Operational reporting became dependable and reconciliation against the accounting records went from a lengthy investigation to an essentially immediate process. Reporting was automated directly from the underlying data, while ongoing controls helped maintain its integrity.

What this demonstrates: data quality recovery, operational governance, API-based automation, access control and management reporting.

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