The latest addition to the Topline Glass team is already said to be making a noticeable difference – improving accuracy, freeing up valuable time, and helping the business focus even more on customer service.

But this is not your average new starter.

Colbi – short for Customer Order Logic & Build interface – is an AI-powered order processing tool developed entirely in-house by office manager Sam Turnock. Designed to support the people behind the scenes rather than replace them, Colbi is quietly changing how orders are handled day to day.

“I didn’t set out to build something clever for the sake of it,” Sam explains. “I just wanted something that could take the repetitive parts of the job and do them really well.”

Topline Glass has long been known for its strong customer relationships and responsive service. According to Sam, Colbi was never about fixing a broken process, it was about protecting that service as the business continues to grow.

“Our customers all have their own ways of working, and that’s not a bad thing,” Sam explains. “They order how it works best for them. The challenge is making sure we can keep giving them the same level of attention, even when things get busy.”

Colbi works by reading and understanding customer orders in a wide range of formats, including emails, PDFs and scanned documents. Crucially, it doesn’t just extract data – it interprets it.

“This isn’t just reading text like traditional OCR (Optical Character Recognition),” Sam explains. “It’s trying to understand intent. It’s reading orders like a human would and making smart decisions based on that.”

Rather than relying on rigid templates, Colbi learns customer preferences over time.

“At the moment I’m training it customer by customer,” Sam says. “Things like default glass types, finishes, or add-ons. Once you’ve told it once, it remembers, exactly like a new starter would.”

That knowledge retention has clear benefits for customers.

“If someone in the office is on holiday, some of that customer knowledge normally goes with them,” Sam explains. “With Colbi, it’s locked in. The customer gets the same consistency, whoever’s dealing with their order.”

Colbi also learns terminology, shorthand and variations in product descriptions.

“People describe the same product in lots of different ways,” Sam says. “It’s learned all of that, so customers don’t have to change how they order just to suit a system.”

While Colbi is still in its early stages, the impact is already clear. Around 40% of Topline Glass’s weekly line items are now processed through the system, with a target of 80% by the end of the year.

“For customers, the biggest benefit is accuracy,” Sam says. “Computers don’t mis-key numbers. That alone makes a huge difference.”

But the real value, she believes, is time.

“Putting orders on is basically data input,” she says. “By taking that away, it frees the team up to answer the phone, give advice, help with technical questions – all the things that help build and strengthen relationships.”

That human element remains central to the process.

“There will always be a need for people to sense-check things, especially with more complex or shaped glass,” Sam adds. “Colbi does the heavy lifting, and we do the thinking.”

One of the most striking aspects of Colbi is how it was developed. Sam built the system herself using an AI-assisted coding platform, translating her day-to-day experience directly into software logic.

“I’m not a developer,” she says. “I’ve just written it as someone who understands how glass orders work. I’ve taught it about the decisions we make and why.”

That practical, grounded approach is what makes Colbi feel less like a tech experiment and more like a genuine member of the team.

Looking ahead, Sam sees plenty of potential, from overnight order processing to faster quoting and even production planning support.

“It’s definitely opened my eyes to what’s possible,” she says. “But at its heart, it’s about giving customers the best service we can – and making sure we’ve got the time to do that.”