Business Transformation Consulting
in Manufacturing

The short answer

Most programmes that aim to raise plant performance miss the mark when the review of what limits contribution per machine hour is commissioned from the advisers who will later be paid to carry out the changes. What makes this harder for manufacturers is structural: the $45M automation case depends on the very customer that causes the margin problem. Any credible answer therefore has to hold contribution per machine hour and capacity utilisation in the same view, which is exactly where most internal analysis stops because the two live in different systems.

A review of operations joins three distinct tasks: calculating which products or customers fail to cover machine time once scrap, changeover and utilisation are allocated, choosing the order of adjustments to those metrics, and supplying the labour to make the adjustments. Advisers bundle the tasks because the initial calculation is recovered through the delivery work that follows. The result is that the calculation tends to surface problems whose solution requires large-scale outside resources.

Programmes organised this way keep showing shortfalls because the conversion of actual plant constraints into project lists occurs before contribution per machine hour and customer concentration have been worked through. The original question of which activities earn their cost of capital is replaced by plans built around the three plants or existing departments.

The test is whether the plant director can already name the two or three constraints on contribution per machine hour, ranked by the order they can be removed this period, with the margin effect attached. When that ranking exists, the need is for execution resources. When it does not, resources spent on execution before the ranking is known simply increase the volume of low-contribution activity.

Corporate Strategy & Transformation produces the ranking of products and customers by honest contribution per machine hour across the three plants, shows which ones subsidise which, and indicates the feasible order of adjustments to utilisation or scrap. It stops short of placing teams on site. Where the arithmetic shows that large-scale changes are required, it states the requirement plainly, so the cost of that knowledge remains lower than the first delivery invoice.

How to tell this is actually your problem

These three together are the signature. One on its own usually points somewhere else.

✓ A proposal to automate lines or add capacity appears before contribution per machine hour is known for the largest customers.
✓ Project plans are already organised around the three plants or departments rather than around specific shortfalls in utilisation, changeover or scrap rate.
✓ Scoping work starts while the effect of customer concentration on margin remains unquantified.

The move that usually makes it worse. Commissioning the assessment of contribution per machine hour and capacity utilisation from the advisers who will later price the changes to those same metrics.

Who this is for — and who it is not

It is for you if you run or finance a manufacturer and the word "transformation" is being used before anyone has agreed what is broken. It is the situation where the numbers are available but nobody has put them in an order that produces a decision.

It is not for you if Percision is the wrong tool if you already know the answer and only need execution capacity, or if the business is pre-revenue — then the constraint is evidence about the market, not analysis of your own figures. Percision is not a lawyer, tax advisor, auditor, licensed appraiser, clinical or regulatory filer, or an AI implementation shop. It does not do HR casework, creative-only brand work, or impersonate a named consulting firm. It is a strategy analysis engine — not a template library. Also wrong if you need facilitation, politics, or someone to sit with a lender or buyer. Those are human jobs.

Percision is not a lawyer, tax advisor, auditor, licensed appraiser, clinical or regulatory filer, or an AI implementation shop. It does not do HR casework, creative-only brand work, or impersonate a named consulting firm. It is a strategy analysis engine — not a template library.

What this looks like when the analysis is actually run

Below is an excerpt from a real run of this analysis on a manufacturer. It is a sample profile rather than a customer, and it is unedited engine output — this is the format you get, on your own numbers.

The subject is Kessler Industrial Components, a sample company profile used for testing rather than a customer — $310M revenue, three plants.

This is one move out of a full analysis. Read a complete report — every page, no email required.

What the engine does with this question

This question routes to Corporate Strategy & Transformation, one of 29 engagements the platform runs. For manufacturers it works through contribution per machine hour, capacity utilisation, customer concentration and scrap, then produces the sequence rather than a list of options — which move first, what it funds, and the observation that would say the sequence is wrong.

You watch the analysis get built before paying anything. Read a complete report here if you would rather see the depth first.

Questions people ask about this

What does business transformation consulting actually cost?

For a mid-market company the diagnostic phase alone is commonly £75k–£250k over six to ten weeks, and the delivery phase that follows is usually several multiples of that. Large-firm day rates run roughly £1,500–£3,500 for a consultant and £4,000–£8,000 for a partner, and a typical team blends the two so the effective rate lands somewhere in the middle. The number that matters is not the day rate, though — it is the ratio of diagnosis to delivery, because that is where the scope is set.

Can software replace a transformation consultancy?

No, and any tool that claims otherwise is selling you something. Software cannot run a programme office, hold a difficult conversation with a divisional MD, or supply forty people for nine months. What it can do is produce the analysis that decides whether you need those things, and what they should be pointed at — which is the part that is most often rushed and most expensive to get wrong.

How do we keep control of the scope?

Buy the diagnosis separately from whoever will deliver, and write the decision down before you take delivery bids. Once the two or three changes are named and the arithmetic is on paper, the delivery tender is a procurement exercise with a fixed brief. Once they are not, the tender sets its own brief, and it is always a larger one.

Is this different in manufacturing than in other industries?

Materially, yes. The $45M automation case depends on the very customer that causes the margin problem — which changes both the diagnosis and the order of the fixes. The metrics that decide it here are contribution per machine hour, capacity utilisation, customer concentration, and an answer built on industry-general benchmarks will usually point at the wrong one first.

What data do I need before this analysis is worth running for a manufacturer?

Less than most people expect. Your last twelve months of revenue and cost split the way you already split it, plus whatever you hold on contribution per machine hour and capacity utilisation. The analysis is explicit about what it is assuming where your data stops, which is more useful than waiting for numbers you may never have.

When is Percision the wrong tool?

Percision is the wrong tool if you already know the answer and only need execution capacity, or if the business is pre-revenue — then the constraint is evidence about the market, not analysis of your own figures. Percision is not a lawyer, tax advisor, auditor, licensed appraiser, clinical or regulatory filer, or an AI implementation shop. It does not do HR casework, creative-only brand work, or impersonate a named consulting firm. It is a strategy analysis engine — not a template library. Also wrong if you need facilitation, politics, or someone to sit with a lender or buyer. Those are human jobs.

Does Percision replace a lawyer, tax advisor, auditor, or AI implementation team?

Percision is not a lawyer, tax advisor, auditor, licensed appraiser, clinical or regulatory filer, or an AI implementation shop. It does not do HR casework, creative-only brand work, or impersonate a named consulting firm. It is a strategy analysis engine — not a template library.