All Case Studies
Case Study
Cut Design Handover From Three Hours to 15–20 Minutes
Problem: Manual Admin
Company
Aussie Tiny Houses
Industry
Manufacturing / Design
Problem
The client design process was slowed by heavy manual documentation, repeated rewriting, and spreadsheet-based updates.
What we built
- • Conversation capture workflow
- • Automated design decision log
- • Automated client update emails
- • Simplified production handover system
Outcome
- ✔ Documentation time reduced from 3 hours to 15–20 minutes
- ✔ 12–18 hours saved per month
- ✔ Faster handovers into production
- ✔ More design capacity without growing headcount
The Situation
Where things stood
Aussie Tiny Houses builds custom tiny homes and had grown to a team of around 18 people. Demand was strong, but leadership could feel the business reaching a growth ceiling.
One area stood out immediately: the client design process.
Before each tiny home could move into production, customers needed to make 16 design decisions. Those decisions were discussed between the client and the designer, Jess — but after each call, Jess still had to manually document every decision, track what was outstanding, update the client, record everything in a large spreadsheet, and eventually convert it all into a production brief.
The documentation alone could take up to three hours per client. With four to six new clients each month, Jess was spending a significant share of her time organising information instead of designing homes.
The Bottleneck
What was actually in the way
The design conversations themselves were working.
The real bottleneck was the administrative work wrapped around them.
Information was being captured, rewritten, and shared repeatedly:
• conversations were not automatically captured
• decisions were manually recorded after meetings
• updates were sent through a cumbersome spreadsheet
• the same information had to be rewritten for different uses
• production handover required another round of manual translation
The business wasn't constrained by demand or design capability.
It was constrained by administrative friction in the process.
The Fix
What we built
We redesigned the design decision workflow around one principle:
Capture information once and reuse it everywhere it is needed.
1. Capturing client conversations
We introduced Otter.ai to record and transcribe design conversations between Jess and clients. This ensured the details discussed in each call were captured automatically rather than recreated from memory later.
2. Automated design decision log
Using automation, the transcription was converted into a structured design decision log that captured:
• decisions already made
• outstanding decisions
• open questions needing clarification
Jess could quickly review and refine it rather than starting from scratch after every meeting.
3. Automated client updates
Once reviewed, the system could automatically draft a client update email summarising design progress. This replaced the spreadsheet-based status reporting and gave clients clearer, faster communication.
4. Simplified production handover
Because all decisions were already structured in the design log, the information could be translated into a production brief without manually rewriting everything again. That made the handover from design into build much cleaner and faster.
The Outcome
What changed
- ✔Design documentation dropped from up to 3 hours per client to approximately 15–20 minutes
- ✔The business saved 12–18 hours per month
- ✔Client updates became faster and clearer
- ✔Production handovers became simpler and more reliable
- ✔More projects could move into production without increasing team size
The Human Payoff
What it actually meant
For Jess, the biggest shift was reclaiming time.
Instead of spending hours documenting conversations, she could focus on helping clients make better design decisions, improving design quality, and contributing to R&D work.
For the business owner, it meant the business could grow without adding more admin headcount, improving profitability per project.
By removing a hidden administrative bottleneck, the team got capacity back to focus on the work they were best at.