Technology and management advisory
We build enterprise systems and implement AI for businesses that run on legacy processes.
Z6 works with owners and executives in construction, logistics, healthcare, and software, turning manual workflows and institutional knowledge into systems people actually use. We measure success by adoption, not demos.
What we do
Four disciplines, one practice.
Systems strategy and architecture
Assess how the business actually runs, then design the systems it should run on: build versus buy, vendor selection, and integration architecture.
AI adoption and workflow automation
Practical AI implementation across quoting, customer care, document workflows, and back office processes. Measured by adoption, not demos.
Analytics and project controls
Business intelligence, cost engineering, and schedule and claims analytics for capital projects, grounded in decades of project controls product work.
Product conceptualization
Turning an operator idea into something buildable: scope, architecture, and a plan a development team can execute against.
Ways to work together
Every engagement has a scope, a duration, and a price.
You always know what you are buying and what you walk away with. Nothing below is an open ended retainer for unspecified hours.
The Independent Inspection
For anyone paying someone else to build software.
Everyone offers to build your AI application. We are the independent party verifying that what you are paying for meets your requirements, is secure, and is built to last. No stake in the builder invoice, which is the point. Also available as an organizational technology audit.
The Assessment and Build Plan
For a business that knows it needs to modernize and does not know where to start.
Two weeks working inside your business. You keep a written modernization plan whether or not you hire us to build it: what to build or buy, in what order, at what cost, and what to avoid.
The Fixed-Scope Build
For a business about to buy an expensive tool.
Before you sign for the big off the shelf system, let us scope the cheaper equivalent: built to what your business actually uses, not the features you will pay for and never touch. Fixed scope, fixed price, and it is yours.
The Fractional CTO Retainer
For the owner who needs a technology executive but not a full time one.
A monthly retainer with a specifically listed scope, not open ended access: a working session with the owner, technology licensing and procurement guidance, vendor and contract review, architecture decisions, hiring help, and a written technology memo.
Hourly advisory is available at $550 per hour for bounded questions, and a full day is $1,800. Not sure which fits? The Inspection or the Assessment is where most engagements start: both end with a document you own and no obligation to continue.
Selected engagements
Twenty-five years of systems that shipped.
Client names are withheld by policy. Every engagement below is described by what was built and what changed.
Software products
Project controls analytics suite: co-owner and head of product.
Schedule, delay, and claims analytics used on major construction and oil and gas programs. More than fifteen years leading the product as a part owner of the firm.
Logistics
Century-old LTL freight carrier: digital transformation.
Architected the modernization of a six terminal, unionized carrier. Automated quoting, online payments and shipment tracking, AI assisted customer care workflows, and enterprise integrations replacing phone and email driven processes.
Freight tech
Digital freight brokerage, built from zero.
Co-founded a brokerage and designed its technology stack end to end: automated quoting and booking workflows, carrier network tooling, and the insurance and compliance framework.
Construction
Specialty contractor of about 30 staff: systems rebuilt end to end.
Served a Tampa specialty contractor as Board Chair, then VP. Built the estimating stack, cost engineering and contracts functions, offshore engineering support, and remote management systems.
Advisory
Acquisition evaluation and structuring.
Diligence and deal structuring for owners across manufacturing, SaaS, and eCommerce, focused on what the systems and the numbers actually say.
- B.Sc. Mechanical Engineering, MBA
- Native Arabic, fluent English
- Based in Lake Forest, California
- Working across the US and the Gulf
- Senior-only delivery, backed by a vetted engineering bench
Principal
Ahmed Zahran, MBA
Founder and Managing Principal
Twenty-five years building enterprise software and leading engineering teams: a decade and more at Cerner, now Oracle Health, leading the retail pharmacy engineering organization; head of product for a project controls analytics suite used on major construction and oil and gas programs; and hands-on transformation work across logistics and construction.
His career began on the SUMED oil pipeline in Egypt, a joint venture of EGPC, Saudi Aramco, Mubadala, KIA, and QatarEnergy.
Engagements are delivered by the principal, not handed to a junior team. Where implementation is needed, a vetted engineering bench builds to the architecture he sets.
Tell us what is not working.
A short conversation is enough to tell whether there is a fit. If there is not, we will say so.
azahran@z6.consulting