Find the right answer in approved knowledge
A fictional service operation maintains a permission-controlled document collection. People search across documents and must check whether the answer is current and accessible to the requester.
- Proposed workflow
- Apply access rules · Retrieve supporting passages · Draft with citations · Escalate uncertainty
- Human control
- Document owners maintain sources; users verify answers before consequential use.
Human effort per month
Hours · review included52% less human effort under these assumptions. This is not cash savings.
Workload mix
- Supported answers70%
- Clarification needed20%
- No sufficient source10%
Assumed distribution, not measured activity.
Inspect the data, calculation and pilot decision
| Input or calculated measure | Illustrative value |
|---|---|
| Monthly in-scope volume | 1,500 knowledge requests |
| Before: human minutes per item | 9 |
| Proposed: human minutes per item | 4 |
| Additional operating hours per month | 8 |
| Baseline human hours per month | 225 |
| Proposed human hours per month | 108 |
| Net capacity change per month | 117 hours |
| Illustrative pilot window | 5 weeks; not a delivery commitment |
| Assumed mix: Supported answers | 1,050 items |
| Assumed mix: Clarification needed | 300 items |
| Assumed mix: No sufficient source | 150 items |
Calculation: 1,500 × 9 ÷ 60 = 225 baseline hours. Proposed: 1,500 × 4 ÷ 60 + 8 operating hours = 108 hours.
Pilot decision: Can a permitted user find a supported answer without exposing restricted information?
Limit: The model includes maintenance effort. It does not imply error-free answers or full question coverage.
Fictional worked example. Future human handling includes review, exceptions and corrections; operating hours are additional. Compare the same workload before drawing a conclusion.
