The verdict in three sentences
For a 400-employee industrial company in Singapore, an internal AI assistant connected to 8,000 procedures and technical data sheets costs between 30,000 and 90,000 SGD (about 22,000 to 66,000 USD) as a custom RAG project, plus 300 to 2,200 SGD per month in API usage, with go-live in 8 to 12 weeks. Assistants built into office suites are faster to switch on, but they handle versioned technical documents poorly and do not always cite the right revision of a procedure. The real decision criterion is the correct-answer rate measured on a set of 200 real questions, with a target above 90% before opening it to the teams.
What a RAG assistant actually does on a document base
RAG (retrieval augmented generation) splits documents into passages, indexes them in a vector database and, for each question, retrieves the 5 to 10 most relevant passages before asking the language model to write a sourced answer. The model does not "know" your procedures: it reads the retrieved excerpts. That is what lets it cite the exact reference, for example "PR-QUA-114 revision F, section 4.2".
For a quality director, three points matter more than the choice of model: version control (only the revision in force must be retrieved), access rights (an operator must not see confidential R&D sheets) and answer traceability for ISO 9001 or customer audits.
| RAG project item | 2026 range (market estimate, SGD) | Share of budget | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Document audit and cleanup (scanned PDFs, duplicates) | 4,500-15,000 | 15% | Often underestimated, OCR required |
| Ingestion, chunking, vector indexing | 6,000-18,000 | 20% | Revision handling and metadata |
| Interface (Teams, intranet, web) and SSO | 4,500-13,500 | 15% | Entra ID or Google Workspace connection |
| Access rights per department | 3,000-12,000 | 12% | Filtering at retrieval time |
| Evaluation set and tuning | 6,000-18,000 | 20% | 200 questions validated by experts |
| Training, rollout, documentation | 3,000-9,000 | 10% | Champions per production area |
| Regional hosting and monitoring (first year) | 3,000-4,500 | 8% | Singapore cloud region |
Custom RAG or office suite assistant
Built-in assistants (Copilot for Microsoft 365, Gemini for Google Workspace) are billed per user. Across 400 employees the bill rises quickly, while only 80 to 150 profiles (quality, engineering, maintenance, production) actually query procedures. A dedicated RAG is paid per project, then per use.
| Criterion | Office suite assistant | Custom RAG hosted in Singapore |
|---|---|---|
| Entry cost | License of about 40 SGD per user per month | 30,000-90,000 SGD project |
| Annual cost for 150 users | About 72,000 SGD | 3,600-26,000 SGD API + 3,000-9,000 SGD hosting |
| Time to go-live | 2 to 4 weeks | 8 to 12 weeks |
| Procedure revision handling | Weak, depends on SharePoint structure | Native, only the revision in force is indexed |
| Exact source citation | Partial | Systematic, with a link to the document |
| Correct-answer rate measurement | Not provided | Built-in evaluation set, target above 90% |
| Data location | Depends on the suite contract | Chosen region, PDPA-compliant processing agreement |
The built-in assistant remains useful for drafting emails and summarising meetings. Both approaches often coexist: the suite for office work, RAG for business know-how.
Hosting, security and compliance
For a manufacturer audited by semiconductor, aerospace or pharma customers, hosting location is not negotiable. Major model providers offer regional endpoints with a commitment not to reuse data for training. The vector database and question logs stay with a local cloud region. Singapore's PDPA requires a clear purpose, protection of personal data contained in documents and a breach notification process, and the Model AI Governance Framework recommends telling users they are interacting with AI.
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Wei Ling, quality director of a 400-employee manufacturer in Singapore, measures the time lost searching for procedures: 120 regular users, 25 minutes per week each, i.e. 50 hours per week. At a loaded hourly cost of 60 SGD, that is about 3,000 SGD per week, or nearly 132,000 SGD per year over 44 weeks. With a 65,000 SGD project, 1,300 SGD of API per month and 4,500 SGD of annual hosting, year one costs 85,100 SGD. If the assistant halves search time, the gain reaches 66,000 SGD in year one and the project pays back in about 17 months, not counting fewer non-conformities caused by using an outdated revision.
FAQ
How long does it take to index 8,000 documents?
Technical ingestion takes 1 to 3 days, but prior cleanup takes 2 to 4 weeks. Scanned PDFs need OCR, at around 0.01 to 0.07 SGD per page.
Can the model invent a procedure?
The risk exists but drops sharply when answers must rely only on retrieved passages, with citations. On a 200-question set, the target is over 90% correct answers and under 2% invented answers.
What daily API cost should we plan for?
For 150 users asking 10 questions a day, plan 300 to 2,200 SGD per month depending on the model and excerpt length. A lighter model is often enough for 70% of questions.
Does data need to stay in Singapore?
A Singapore cloud region covers most PDPA and customer requirements. Some defence or pharma customers require dedicated tenancy, which adds 10 to 20% to hosting costs.
Who maintains the assistant after launch?
Automatic re-indexing runs on each new revision. Plan 1 to 2 days per month to monitor the answer rate and unanswered questions.
Let's scope your project. Send us your document volume, user count and hosting constraints: we will scope the RAG perimeter, budget and 8 to 12 week plan. Detailed quote within 48 h. WhatsApp +221 77 596 93 33.
Mohamed Bah
Fondateur, Kolonell
Passionate about digital and entrepreneurship in Africa, Mohamed has been helping Sénégalese businesses with their digital transformation since 2020. Founder of Kolonell, he believes every SME deserves a professional and accessible online présence.
