PILLAR 1
Quality
Rework, defects, returns, and the trust they cost you.
Quality failures are rarely a people problem. They are a specification, tooling, or handoff problem that shows up at the last station.
Our method
Where we look, what it costs, and how we fix it.
Three things run underneath every engagement. Six stages that work moves through, so a finding gets pinned to where it started rather than where you happened to notice it. Six pillars that put a dollar figure on it. And a four-phase sequence, so you always know what happens next.
The framework
The Six Pillars
Every operation we walk into is failing in one of six places — and the failure almost never starts where you notice it.
PILLAR 2
Safety
Incidents, claims, downtime, and insurance load.
Safety incidents are the most expensive form of unplanned downtime, and the cost lands long after the event.
PILLAR 3
Customer Service
Escalations, churn, credits, and repeat contact.
Most service failures are operations failures that reached the customer. Fix the upstream step and the queue shrinks.
PILLAR 4
People
Turnover, overtime, training drag, and vacancy cost.
Turnover is the most under-measured cost in the business. Every exit takes documented process knowledge with it.
PILLAR 5
Flow
Throughput, idle time, rework loops, and handoffs.
The core pillar: how work actually moves. Bad workflow is rarely just labor — it is sequencing, tooling, and waiting.
PILLAR 6
Systems & Data
Tools, integrations, and the reporting nobody opens.
Most operations already own the software they need. What is missing is the handoff between two of them, currently performed by a person.
“Bad workflow is rarely just labor.”
Most of the time it is know-how and training — then sequencing, tooling, handoffs, and the waiting in between. Add people to that and you have simply bought a more expensive queue. It is also why we start by meeting you where you are.
How we look
Six stages every operation runs through.
Whatever you make or sell, work moves through the same six stages. Most operators have never had to name them — and every one of them will look familiar the moment you do.
STAGE 1
Plan
“Do we know what is coming?”
Demand, capacity and scheduling. Next month’s problem is either created or avoided here, usually weeks before anyone feels it on the floor.
STAGE 2
Source
“Can we get what we need, when we need it?”
Suppliers, inbound, materials and lead times. A supplier who is reliably late is a scheduling problem you have quietly agreed to own.
STAGE 3
Make
“Can we do the work right the first time?”
Production, assembly or service delivery, and the rework loop that follows it. This is where most operators look first, and where the cause usually is not.
STAGE 4
Deliver
“Can we get it out the door as promised?”
Picking, packing, shipping, install, and the promise date. Late delivery is nearly always an upstream failure arriving on the customer’s doorstep.
STAGE 5
Return
“What happens when it comes back?”
Returns, warranty, credits and reverse logistics. The most under-measured stage in almost every operation we walk into, because nobody owns it.
STAGE 6
Enable
“What holds the whole thing together?”
Data, systems, people, rules and compliance. Not a stage work passes through, but the one that decides whether the other five can run at all.
“Six stages, six pillars.”
The stages tell us where to look. The pillars tell us what it is costing you. A finding only counts when it has both — a stage it lives in, and an annual dollar figure next to it.
These six stages follow SCOR, the Supply Chain Operations Reference model published by ASCM and used across industry. We work to its structure because it is the language your suppliers, customers and auditors already speak — and then we translate it into yours.
Our process
Diagnose. Design. Deploy. Accelerate.
A predictable sequence over three to six months, so you always know what happens next and what you get at the end of it. How long it runs is usually down to how fast you can mobilize the team.
1
Weeks 1–2
Diagnose
We walk the floor, watch the work, pull the data, and interview the people doing the job. You get a ranked list of what is costing you money, with numbers attached.
2
Weeks 3–6
Design
We redesign the workflow around the constraint — new sequence, new tooling, new SOPs — and pressure-test it with the team who will run it.
3
Months 2–4
Deploy
We implement alongside your people, not in a document. Training, cadence, dashboards, and the first measured results.
4
Months 4–6
Accelerate
We hand over the operating rhythm, coach your managers to run it, and check back on the metrics that mattered.
Put your own numbers against it
The estimator runs the same six pillars — whether you are recovering something that is leaking today, or working out what growth would otherwise cost you.
Common questions
Questions operators ask us
Straight answers, including the ones about price. If the question you have isn't here, ask it on a call — we'd rather tell you plainly than make you read another page.
Should we fix the bottleneck before we grow, or just add capacity?
That is the work we do. We are operations consultants who diagnose the constraint before anyone spends money on growth — because adding volume, headcount or sites to a broken workflow just buys a more expensive queue. A diagnostic walks the floor, watches the work, pulls the data and interviews the people doing the job, then hands you a ranked list of what is costing you money with numbers attached. Only then do we redesign anything.
What does an operations consultant actually do?
A good one changes how work moves, not how it is described. We map the real sequence of your operation, find where throughput is lost to waiting, rework and handoffs, redesign those steps with the team who runs them, and then implement alongside your people — training, cadence and dashboards included. You should be able to measure the difference against a baseline agreed before the work started.
What are the Six Pillars you diagnose across?
Quality, Safety, Customer Service, People, Flow and Systems & Data. Every operation we walk into is failing in one of those six places, and the failure almost never starts where you notice it. Quality problems are usually specification or handoff problems showing up at the last station. Service escalations are usually operations failures that reached the customer. Turnover is the most under-measured cost in the business. We score all six so the fix targets the cause rather than the symptom.
What is the SCOR model, and do I need to understand it?
Six: Plan, Source, Make, Deliver, Return and Enable. It is the structure of SCOR, the Supply Chain Operations Reference model published by ASCM, and it is worth knowing because it is the language your suppliers, customers and auditors already use. You do not need to learn the acronym to benefit from it. Every operation already runs these six stages whether or not anyone has named them, and naming them is what stops a problem being blamed on the place it was noticed rather than the place it started. We score each stage against the six pillars, so a finding always arrives with both a stage and an annual dollar figure.
How long before we see measurable results?
We aim for a visible, measurable win inside six weeks, within a full engagement that typically runs three to six months: weeks 1–2 diagnose, weeks 3–6 design, months 2–4 deploy alongside your team, then an accelerate phase where we hand over the operating rhythm and coach your managers to run it. How long it takes is usually down to how fast you can mobilize the team. Across 18 years of operations leadership and consulting engagements the average cost reduction is about 18 percent. Within an engagement we agree the baseline before we start, so the change is measured rather than asserted.
How much does operations consulting cost?
There are three ways to get help, so the price matches how much of the lifting you want us to do. Guided coaching — The Operator's Program — is $1,500 per month. Flexible talent is hourly or on contract. Done-for-you engagements are custom-scoped after a diagnostic call. If the cheapest thing that fixes your problem is not an engagement at all, we will tell you that instead of selling you one.
What is fractional ops leadership, and when do I need it?
It is an experienced operations leader embedded in your business part-time — running the weekly cadence, coaching your managers and owning the operational numbers — without a senior full-time salary. It fits when you have outgrown the owner running ops personally but cannot yet justify a full-time COO or VP Operations, when you need interim coverage for a departure or leave, or when you want someone to build the function and then hire and onboard your permanent leader.
What size and type of business do you work with?
Mostly operationally intensive businesses between about $2M and $25M in revenue: distribution and third-party logistics, warehousing and DTC fulfillment, light manufacturing, field services and multi-site retail. The common thread is that better operations — not just more sales — is what moves the profit line. We also run discounted diagnostics for independent local operators and take on a limited number of nonprofit engagements each year at no cost.
How is this different from hiring a big consulting firm?
Every engagement is led by someone who has personally owned the P&L, the schedule and the escalation — our team has run distribution centers, retail floors and supply chains at Amazon, Walmart and national big-box retailers. You get an operator on your floor and in your systems rather than a deck. We agree the baseline before we start, measure against it after, and if the improvement depends on us still being there, we have not finished the job.
Do you work on-site or remotely?
Both, and the diagnostic phase is deliberately on-site. You cannot see where work actually stalls from a video call — the first two weeks involve walking the floor, watching shifts and talking to the people doing the job. Design and deployment then run as a mix of on-site working sessions and remote cadence, and coaching engagements run weekly over video.
What do I get out of a first call?
Thirty minutes, no deck and no pitch. We ask what is breaking, tell you where we think the money is leaking, and say plainly whether we are the right team to help. If you want a number before you talk to anyone, the savings calculator will give you a rough annual figure from your team size, loaded hourly cost, revenue and the pillars where you feel pain — capped at 15 percent of revenue, because we do not believe estimates larger than that without walking your floor first.
The method, pointed at you
Run the six pillars against your own operation.
Book a 30-minute diagnostic call and we will make the first pass with you — where the effort is duplicated, what it costs, and which pillar to open first.