⌁ About · ten years of operational systems

We didn't arrive at automation. We walked here through the factory.

Biomedical R&D. Structural design. Manufacturing process engineering. QA. Factory IT. Every stage taught us something a pure software studio misses — and every project inherits all of it.

Meet the teamBook a chat
MBCS · Chartered IT
UMN Carlson (Information Systems)
Computer vision · dissertation
Lean · QA · process engineering
lifeline · ten years of operational systemscontinuous
20142017201920222024
Biomedical R&D
Computer-vision dissertation. Medical imaging pipelines.
Structural design
CAD. Tolerances. Things that cannot fail.
Manufacturing
Process engineering · QA · lean production.
Factory IT
SyteLine · Infor ION · ERP integration.
Shadow-Gen
Automation & AI as infrastructure.
2014
Biomedical R&D
Computer-vision dissertation. Medical imaging pipelines.
2017
Structural design
CAD. Tolerances. Things that cannot fail.
2019
Manufacturing
Process engineering · QA · lean production.
2022
Factory IT
SyteLine · Infor ION · ERP integration.
2024
Shadow-Gen
Automation & AI as infrastructure.
5 stages · one through-lineevery engagement inherits all of it
About

The people who actually show up.

Small by design. No account managers, no slide-factory. You work with the engineer building the thing and the operator making sure it lands. That's it — and that's why projects actually finish.

Rafal Fila
01 · Founder · Process & Automation Engineer

Rafal Fila

Engineer across biomedical R&D, structural design, manufacturing process engineering, QA, factory IT and lean production. Allergic to processes that look fine on a slide and fall apart on the floor.

What this means for you

You work directly with the engineer building the thing. No account managers, no discovery theatre.

  • ·MBCS · Chartered IT Institute
  • ·UMN Carlson — Information Systems
  • ·Computer-vision engineering dissertation
Martyna
02 · Operations · Client Delivery

Martyna

Runs delivery end-to-end — discovery, scope, handovers, training. The reason engagements finish on time with happy teams, not with a half-built tool and an open ticket.

What this means for you

Your team is trained, documented, and owns the automation before we step away.

  • ·Delivery & client operations
  • ·Discovery facilitation
  • ·Handover & training
Recent build
200+
paper inspection forms a month

Photographed on a factory floor — bad light, tired hands, creased paper. Now processed end-to-end by AI. Days of reporting turned into minutes. Running quietly in production for over a year. Every build we ship comes with error handling, logs, documentation, and a handover Loom — so your team owns it, not us.

Origin

Why this studio, specifically.

The short version of how Shadow-Gen exists.

At one point I was rebuilding a stage-gate form for the 200th time — same spreadsheet, new coat of paint, every quarter. Someone senior would ask for a report; someone junior would spend Thursday night making it; nobody remembered it by Monday.

That was the week I realised the real work wasn't the forms. It was everything the forms were quietly compensating for — no integration, no single source of truth, no way for one system to tell another what just happened.

Shadow-Gen was set up to fix exactly that. Not with new software. With the software you already paid for, finally doing the thing you thought you were buying.

Method

Five rules we won't break.

Not a framework. Not a PDF. Just the things we kept learning the hard way and decided to stop re-learning.

01

Walk the floor first

We spend time where the work happens, not in a Miro board. Every engagement starts with mapping what's actually happening — not what the org chart says.

02

Fixed scope. Fixed price.

No retainers that silently renew. No hourly billing. You know exactly what you're paying for and what you're getting before we start.

03

Build on what you already have

Your ERP, your CRM, your spreadsheets. We make them do the job you thought you were buying. New platforms only when genuinely unavoidable.

04

Leave your team in control

Documentation, Loom walkthroughs, a handover session with whoever will live with this thing. Your team owns the automation before we're gone.

05

Tell you when we're not the right fit

If the problem needs a product specialist, a CFO, or a lawyer — we'll say so, and help you find one. Free of charge.

◇ Book a call

Give us 30 minutes. We'll tell you exactly where the money is hiding in your operation.

No slide deck. No generic discovery questions. We'll walk through your actual workflows, name the single highest-leverage thing to fix next quarter, and give you a rough ROI estimate — whether or not you work with us after.

Pick a time now
Or fill the form and we'll reply with slots within a working day.
Direct
hello@shadow-gen.com
Based
United Kingdom · remote-first
Admin hours/week across the team
What we should look at first