We replace Excel-by-committee with one real-time version of the truth — then work it until the gains hold. Mid-market manufacturing, food & CPG, and PE portfolio operations.
We've walked into plants where the planning system was a 50-tab Excel file. Nobody opens it. Nobody trusts it. And leadership can't see what actually matters.
Your planners are smart. Your ops team is capable. But people spend more time chasing data and arguing about which report is right than resolving the issue in front of them. When a system requires a PhD in pivot tables to find the answer, it isn't a system. It's a barrier.
Complexity doesn't announce itself on the P&L. It shows up as SKU tail, changeover burden, undisciplined run sizes, ingredient variety, and scheduling churn — each one quietly pricing itself into your margin.
We don't just give you reports. We make your next decision obvious.
The whole point, in one lineMost analytics work stops at visibility — a dashboard that describes what already happened. We build the loop that turns a number into a named action, an owner, and a change you can still measure a year later. Your existing systems already hold what we need; nobody has to rip anything out.
Pull ERP, WMS, MES, and the spreadsheets people actually use into one refreshed view. No manual re-keying, no version arguments, no waiting on a monthly export.
Convert operational detail into dollars. Not "aging is elevated" — how much cash, in which items, held by whom, and what the recovery is worth this quarter.
Every flagged item gets an owner, a due date, and a decision to make. A metric without a name attached is a report. A metric with one is a commitment.
Weekly movement against a locked baseline, escalation triggers when pace slips, and a margin bridge that shows realized versus planned. The scoreboard doesn't reset.
Targets are set against a frozen starting point so progress can't be re-explained. Everyone sees the same gap and the same pace, week over week.
Each module carries an ownership map — who decides, who executes, who escalates. Ambiguity is where improvement plans quietly die.
The conditions that require leadership attention are agreed before the work starts, so bad news travels fast instead of surfacing at quarter end.
The largest improvements and the largest backslides, ranked and dollarized. It takes about five minutes to read and it drives the standing meeting.
What could derail the plan, how likely, what it costs, and the mitigation already in motion. Reviewed on cadence, not written once and filed.
We build it on your data, in tools your team can run. When the engagement ends, the system stays and keeps working without us in the room.
Our bias: a decision-ready view your operators open every morning beats a beautiful analysis they read once. If a dashboard doesn't change what someone does before lunch, we built the wrong thing.
We break the operation into modules, rank them by EBITDA impact, and work the biggest one first. Each module stands alone and every module feeds the same executive view — so a site manager and a board member are finally looking at the same numbers. The module set below is the manufacturing configuration; distribution networks run a parallel set built around inbound, selection, load, and labor.
Forecast accuracy, min-max tuning, and S&OP alignment — consensus demand signals tied back to actuals.
Supplier lead time tracking, PO visibility, and inbound material flow tied to real production needs.
Optimized run sequences, capacity constraints managed, and scheduling aligned to demand in real time.
OEE tracking, yield analysis, line performance, and capacity utilization in a single view.
Reduce excess, improve turns, free working capital — top offenders flagged by owner and category.
PM scheduling, MTBF and MTTR tracking, spare parts optimization, and unplanned downtime reduction.
Hold tracking, disposition status, CAPA visibility, and defect trends surfaced by line and product.
Location utilization, inbound and outbound flow, storage efficiency, and order accuracy in one view.
One consolidated view across all modules — KPIs, variances, and open actions surfaced by function and owner. Built for leadership to see what matters, ask the right questions, and drive decisions without digging through reports.
We scope against a locked baseline and a dated plan, not a discovery phase of indeterminate length. You should know by day thirty whether this is working.
Size the problem in dollars and stop it getting worse while the structural work gets built.
Build the module, then change the rules underneath it so the same problem can't re-form.
Hand over ownership and prove the gain holds without us standing behind it.
What we won't do: hand over a deck and leave. We stay on site through implementation, and we measure ourselves on gains that are still there a year later — not on recommendations delivered.
Complexity prices itself into margin the same way whether you're running a bakery line or a transformer plant. The framework is sector-agnostic; the analysis never is.
Mid-market processors facing input volatility, SKU proliferation, and margin compression the standard cost system was never built to explain. Our deepest bench.
Transformers, switchgear, cooling, and power systems. Record backlogs are hiding a manual, high-cost operation. The cheapest time to fix it is while you're winning.
Operational diligence, first-hundred-days plans, and portfolio-wide visibility. One reporting standard across holdings instead of a workbook per company.
Distribution networks and foodservice DCs. With two dozen buildings you don't need a theoretical target — your top quartile already proves what's achievable. We quantify the spread and close it.
A ranked, quantified view of where EBITDA is leaking — in weeks, not quarters.
Custom, live, decision-ready. Built on your data, owned by your team when we're done.
Plant and DC footprint strategy, site consolidation analysis, and make-versus-buy modeling across the network.
Underperforming plants stabilized and rebuilt — cost, service, quality, and morale together.
Cash conversion cycle, coverage policy, aging and disposition, and the cash trapped between them.
Asset strategy and the people, process, and systems that make uptime repeatable rather than heroic.
Layout design, equipment selection, automation scoping, and installation support end to end.
Plan, risk register, resourcing, and delivery discipline for capital and operational initiatives.
Seasoned operators to fill key management gaps while you run a proper search.
Module Management Series — operator-level analysis of the forces reshaping industrial margin.
The build-out handed equipment makers the strongest order books in a generation. The cheapest moment to build a structurally better operation is right now — while you're winning. Most suppliers will spend it shipping.
Input costs, tariffs, and SKU proliferation ran the same experiment across the food sector — in reverse. What the compression cycle revealed about which operators were actually improving.
Why the most sophisticated planning file in the building is usually the one nobody trusts — and what replaces it.
Three Chain Catalyst is a boutique end-to-end supply chain consultancy. Our team has held executive supply chain and operations roles inside Fortune 500 companies and private-equity-backed businesses, including turnarounds and distressed situations.
That background sets the posture. We've been the ones accountable for the number at the end of the quarter, which is why we work through implementation rather than stopping at recommendation.
Small by design. You get senior people on site — not a pyramid of analysts learning your business on your budget.
The first conversation is a working session, not a pitch. Bring one problem you can't currently see clearly and we'll tell you what it would take to see it.