Hiring a Strategic Planning Consultant
in Manufacturing

The short answer

A capacity model and a decision to drop a customer are different objects, and the annual process reliably produces the first while the three plants needed the second. Manufacturers carry a specific bind here — the $45M automation case depends on the very customer that causes the margin problem. Until that is priced, contribution per machine hour will keep moving for reasons nobody can attribute, and the debate about forecast accuracy against plan will stay a matter of opinion.

Each plant lists the additional machine hours it would run if given more budget, the contribution per machine hour figures are summed across all three sites, the total exceeds available takt time, and every line is scaled back by the same percentage so the published document shows a feasible load. Nothing in that sequence forces a choice between two customers both demanding capacity, which is what strategy requires. It forces acceptance of reduced hours on every line, which is what loading a finite set of machines produces.

The consultant is brought in to force the choice between keeping the high-scrap customer and freeing hours for the automation case that depends on it, yet the constraint remains that cutting that customer raises plant utilisation only if the CEO or plant director accepts the revenue loss. An outside facilitator can run the meeting that surfaces the contribution per machine hour gap, but cannot change which customer must be told no, so the final document still lists every existing line with a smaller share of hours.

The legitimate reason to bring someone in is that no one on site has time to pull five years of changeover and scrap rate data, separate the hours consumed by the margin-draining customer from the rest, and show exactly how many additional good hours the $45M automation would need to justify itself. That assembly work is real and cannot be done between shift changes, though once the numbers exist the arithmetic itself is now largely automated.

Corporate Strategy & Transformation (catalog id t5) performs that assembly: it isolates contribution per machine hour by customer, states the capacity utilisation impact of retaining or dropping the problem account, and shows what utilisation and scrap rate would have to be true for the automation case to clear the hurdle. It does not run the plant director's meeting and cannot compel acceptance of the lost volume. Where the obstacle is authority rather than missing arithmetic, the correct purchase is a facilitator who can absorb the political cost.

How to tell this is actually your problem

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

✓ The last capacity model still assigned hours to the customer whose contribution per machine hour sits below the plant average.
✓ The same changeover-heavy SKUs remain on the list year after year with no reduction in scrap rate or dedicated runs.
✓ The budget for next year is finalised before anyone has modelled what happens to utilisation if the high-concentration customer is removed.

The move that usually makes it worse. Hiring a facilitator to resolve a question of authority over which customer to keep, which produces a well-run session that still assigns hours to every existing line.

Who this is for — and who it is not

It is for you if you run or finance a manufacturer and the last plan contained no decision to stop doing something. 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 a strategic planning consultant charge?

An independent facilitator running an offsite and producing a plan is commonly £8k–£30k. A firm running a full planning cycle with analysis is £60k–£200k. The range is wide because the two jobs are different: one is facilitation, one is evidence. Decide which you are short of before you compare quotes, because the cheap version of the wrong one is still wasted.

How long should a strategic plan be?

Short enough that the trade-offs are visible. A useful plan states where you will win, what you will stop, and the two or three things that must be true. Most of the length in a typical planning document is evidence supporting decisions that were already made, which belongs in an appendix nobody needs to read twice.

Should the plan cover three years or one?

Set direction over three and commit resource over one. Three-year financial detail is invented precision in almost every business, and treating it as a commitment makes the plan brittle. The parts that genuinely need a three-year view are capacity, capital and capability, because those are the ones that cannot be changed inside a year.

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.