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Manufacturing Process Optimization
Throughput, changeover time, scrap and labour utilisation examined on the floor. We quantify where capacity is genuinely lost, then sequence the fixes by payback rather than by ease.
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Consulting for manufacturers
Operational expertise, on the floor where it counts.
Walton Rose works with manufacturing businesses on the problems that decide whether a year is profitable: throughput, sourcing, cost structure and the handful of decisions that carry real consequence. Our consultants have run these functions themselves — not observed them from a slide deck.
Sectors we serve
- Automotive & Transportation
- Aerospace & Defense
- Consumer Products
- Industrial Manufacturing
- Packaging & Plastics
- 20+ years
- Senior operating experience
- CPO to CFO
- Full P&L coverage
- PE & private
- Backed and family-held
- Practitioners
- Not career consultants
What we do
Six engagements, one standard of rigour
Every engagement starts with the same question: what is actually constraining this business? The answer decides the work — not a template.
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Digital Transformation & Industry 4.0
ERP, MES and shop-floor data assessed against what the business will actually use. We are candid about which systems repay the disruption and which are an expensive distraction.
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Supply Chain & Logistics Strategy
Category strategy, supplier negotiation, freight cost analysis and inventory policy — across raw materials, packaging and every mode of transport. Savings that survive the next quarter.
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Operational Turnaround
For businesses under pressure from lenders, owners or a board. Cash first, then margin, then structure — with a plan that stakeholders can be shown without embarrassment.
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Growth & Expansion Planning
New capacity, new plants, new geographies and acquisition integration. Modelled properly, including the operational cost of growth that business cases usually leave out.
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Change Management & Training
The part that decides whether any of the above sticks. We build the capability inside your team so the improvement outlasts the engagement.
ExploreWhy Walton Rose
Senior people, on your problem, from day one
Large firms sell you a partner and staff the work with analysts. We are a small group of senior practitioners, which means the person who scoped your engagement is the person doing it.
Between us we have carried the titles our clients hold — Chief Procurement Officer, VP of Sourcing and Supply Chain, Business Unit CFO. We have signed the contracts, missed the targets, fixed the plants and sat through the board meetings afterwards. That experience shapes the advice, and it makes us comfortable telling you when the answer is simpler or cheaper than you expected.
What working with us looks like
- A senior consultant on site, not a junior team with a weekly check-in
- Findings quantified in dollars and days, not maturity scores
- Recommendations sequenced by payback, with the cheap wins first
- An honest read when the problem is not the one you asked us about
- Capability left behind in your team, deliberately
- A scope and a fee agreed before the work starts
How an engagement runs
Four phases, no mystery
01
Diagnose
Two to three weeks on site and in the data. We map the constraint, size the opportunity and tell you plainly whether it justifies a project. Sometimes it does not, and we say so.
02
Prioritise
A ranked plan with expected value, effort and owner against each item. You decide what to fund; we are explicit about which items depend on each other.
03
Implement
We work alongside your managers rather than around them — negotiating the contracts, redesigning the flow, standing up the reporting. Progress is measured against the baseline we agreed.
04
Hand over
Documented processes, trained owners and a reporting pack your team runs without us. We would rather be re-engaged for the next problem than retained on this one indefinitely.
The team
Three disciplines that cover a manufacturing P&L
Supply chain, sourcing and finance — the three levers that move a manufacturer's results, each held by someone who has owned it in industry.
Charlie Dieruf
Logistics & supply chainSupply chain optimisation, carrier negotiation and freight cost analysis for businesses whose transport spend has quietly outgrown its scrutiny.
Chris Karwacki
Sourcing & supply chainTwenty years in strategic sourcing and global supply chain, formerly Chief Procurement Officer at Inno-Pak and VP Sourcing & Supply Chain at Novolex.
Kevin Burnett
Finance & FP&ASenior financial executive across private equity portfolio, private and public companies. Controllership, ERP implementation and acquisition diligence.
Common questions
Before you get in touch
How small an engagement will you take?
Smaller than most firms our clients have dealt with. A focused diagnostic on a single plant or category is a perfectly good starting point, and it is often the most honest way for both sides to find out whether we are useful to each other.
Do you only work with companies in trouble?
No. Turnaround work is one of six services. A good deal of what we do is with healthy businesses that are growing, integrating an acquisition, or aware that a cost base has drifted while attention was elsewhere.
Will we be handed to a junior team?
No. The consultant who scopes the work does the work. That is the main structural difference between us and a large firm, and it is deliberate — it is also why we take on fewer engagements at once.
How do you charge?
Fixed fee against a defined scope for diagnostic work, and a monthly rate for implementation support. Both are agreed in writing before we start. We will tell you the likely range in the first conversation rather than after a proposal process.
Do you sign confidentiality agreements?
Routinely, and usually before the first substantive discussion. Much of our work touches supplier pricing and cost structure, so we expect it.
Tell us what is constraining the business
One conversation is usually enough to establish whether we can help and roughly what it would take. No proposal process required to find out.