I help manufacturers with a strategic roadmap because I’ve been on both sides.

Growing up in the metals industry in NE Ohio, I learned how a business should efficiently operate and the grit it took to grow the vast number of industrial companies found between Cleveland and Pittsburgh. From those who fabricated parts, produced heavy equipment, and processed steel to machine shops that value added into a complex supply chain; small to medium sized manufacturing companies are the backbone of our economy. Funny to mention, it was all done with green screen ERPs, clipboards, and proven processes.

Yet new challenges are before us.

Rapid digital transformation that has largely benefitted enterprise corporations threaten those with older platforms and traditional processes with no clear roadmap to innovations like AI or efficiencies through software. The other challenge, nobody in software ever wants to learn your business or market to effectively prescribe what your business needs (or what it doesn’t).

Chances are the pressure to keep up with technology from competitors, customers, or your bottom line has all options on the table. Some are clear, others are not, a few have been tried before that never delivered the ROI, while others questionably try to lead you away from what worked. Your intuition is right; from supply chain through operations to your customers - solutions should serve the business, not disrupt it.

Unfortunately, they are ALL expensive needing a blind commitment mentality and sold by people who never stepped foot onto a factory floor. They may understand IT or their platform, but they don’t know real-world workflows. You often find that out after disruption has occurred, documents on SharePoint become your back-up reporting system, and another solution is needed to fill the gap. It’s never simple, I know.

Over a span of 25yrs, I’ve built and ran several manufacturing companies in different leadership roles. Whether it was from the operations, sales, or the ownership seat; I just wanted technology to bring efficiency, intuitive to use, and run that damn report that somehow takes a day. I failed, succeeded, gave up, but most of all I learned. Instead of retiring, I decided to join the dark side and try to shape data solutions, so they serve the roles that drive business success.

Today after 5 years on the other side working with a global SaaS company and large partners like Accenture, Deloitte, Microsoft, PWC, etc. to help billion-dollar enterprises find solutions, it was time I pass along what I learned to the very market I grew up in. My role isn’t to sell software or audit anyone’s processes, but to infuse operational reality back into data decision-making and share best practice insight before irreversible digital bets are made.

No buzzwords. No fluff. No month-long theater.