Guides · Operations
Throughput, quality, and flow.
S&OP, capacity, quality cost, and lean visual management for plant and operations leaders. Every worked example is labelled illustrative.
12 guides · 2 free calculators · 1 template
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On-Time Delivery Root-Cause Calculator
A missed delivery is never one thing — material shortage, capacity, supplier delay, and a handful of other causes each show up identically as a single red data point. Get an instant OTD rate, benchmark comparison, and dollar breakdown by cause.
Safety Stock Calculator
Safety stock, reorder point and carrying cost from demand and lead time variability and a service level, with a scenario comparison.
Guides and Templates
Method, formulas, and templates, each focused on one decision.
S&OP Process Setup
S&OP process setup for mid-market manufacturers: the monthly cycle, owners, forecast accuracy and bias formulas, templates, and a worked supply gap.
Capacity Utilization and Throughput Analysis
Capacity utilization and throughput analysis: find the bottleneck, calculate OEE, value an hour at the constraint, and decide where added capacity pays.
Quality Cost and Scrap Reduction
Quality cost and scrap reduction: measure the cost of poor quality, build a scrap Pareto, calculate first pass and rolled yield, and rank fixes by dollars.
Lean Visual Management for Plants
Lean visual management for plants: takt time, hourly production boards, kanban sizing, 5S audits, and escalation rules that surface problems fast.
More Operations guides
An AI Risk Register for Finance and Operations Teams, and How Often to Review It
An AI risk register for finance and operations: eight risks, an owner and a tested control for each, and a 15-minute monthly review with a template.
Build vs Buy for Internal Tools
Build vs buy for internal tools: a decision framework, three-year cost comparison, risk checks, and a worked example to choose with evidence, not instinct.
Data Foundations for Operating Reporting
Data foundations for operating reporting: metric definitions, system of record, master data, reconciliation, and a 90-day plan for trusted numbers.
ERP Selection for PE Portfolio Companies
ERP selection for PE portfolio companies: when to replace, how to score options, how to compare five-year cost, and how to control migration risk.
Operational Due Diligence Checklist
An operational due diligence checklist for buyers: capacity, quality, supply chain, maintenance and key-person risk, with a findings register and example.
Your OTD Rate Doesn't Show Where the Money Is Going
OTD and OTIF tell you how often you're late. Neither tells you why, what each cause costs, or what you spent staying on time. Here's how to find out.
Your Span of Control Looks Fine. Here's the Real Cost.
A benchmark-average span of control can hide thin-span managers burning payroll. Here's how to read the distribution instead of the mean.
What is a Business Playbook? Your Complete Guide
Learn how business playbooks provide systematic frameworks for consistent results, and how AI-powered playbooks are changing performance improvement.
Free templates
Working files that go with these guides, with the worked examples already filled in. Enter your name and work email and we send the file personally.
Free template · Excel workbook
S&OP, Capacity and Quality Cost Workbook
A monthly S&OP supply-demand view, constraint and OEE analysis, cost of quality and scrap Pareto.
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