The obvious place to start is on the shop floor. The decision whether to add automation should be driven not only by the work mix, but the individual parts you turn out. There are a lot of variables, such as tolerances, material type (how it interacts with machine), part size, part weight, ease of changeover and interference issues.
Determine what equipment on the line is doing the heavy lifting and where the bottlenecks are in the flow. Would automation alleviate the chokepoints? For example, if most of your work is done on a press brake with tight tolerances, robotics may not be the best solution.
The physical dimensions of the workspace should also be taken into consideration. Is there enough room to add automation equipment where it will produce the most value? And if you’re in an HMLV environment, will the automation you choose allow you to easily change over jobs?