Create an adaptable, viable business
Rising costs, evolving technology and workforce challenges — for manufacturers, navigating these challenges and an ever-changing industry can make it difficult to realize your vision of success.
To achieve your business objectives, you need to keep your people, processes and technology aligned and working optimally. And Wipfli can help, supporting you in identifying the root causes of your biggest barriers to growth and deploying effective strategies.
Our manufacturing strategy and operations services help you stay equipped to execute change, transform operations and achieve long-term success.
Why Wipfli?
Wipfli brings deep industry experience to collaborate with your company. We’ve lived your pain points, and we’re ready to apply a hands-on approach and proven solutions to help you solve them.
We provide a full range of strategy facilitation and process improvement services with solutions that cover critical aspects of manufacturing, from your shop floor operations to sales process improvement.
Manufacturing strategy
Wipfli’s manufacturing services help your business stay future-ready, applying our industry experience and knowledge of your company’s needs to help drive sustainable growth.
With proven processes and methodologies, our strategy facilitators help you create an actionable plan that drives results. And our services go beyond the plan to provide holistic alignment that helps ensure your organization stays unified in achieving your objectives.
We can help you leverage strategy in key areas, including business planning processes and stress testing. We can also support your business with:
Sales process improvement
Driving sustainable revenue growth in manufacturing requires more than just sales training — it demands a strategic, data-driven approach that connects the front office to the shop floor.
At Wipfli, we help manufacturers align their sales strategy with execution. Our consultants begin by understanding your business goals, target markets and current sales performance through a deep dive into your operations and data. From there, we help you refine your go-to-market strategy, identify growth opportunities and build the tools and processes needed to support scalable sales operations.
Whether it’s implementing or optimizing your CRM, developing market studies or designing sales processes, we equip your team with the right systems and insights. We also provide ongoing coaching and support to help your sales leaders and teams stay aligned with your growth objectives.
Custom market studies
Wipfli provides tailored market studies designed specifically for manufacturers looking to expand to new regions or markets. Whether you’re diversifying your end markets or processes, evaluating a potential acquisition or seeking to understand competitive dynamics, each study is customized to your strategic priorities to help give you the clarity and confidence to move forward.
Wipfli’s assessment services provide an accessible, effective way to evaluate your company and establish external and internal benchmarks.
We take the results of our annual assessments — conducted in multiple sectors, from precision machining to tool and die — and our analysis of your organization and turn them into actionable insights for your improvement.
Our assessments can better position your company for short-term and long-term success by identifying your gaps, opportunities and relevant best practices.
Access the data and custom research you need to shape an effective strategy with Wipfli’s benchmarking services.
Throughout the year, we use tools to collect and analyze data from hundreds of companies in various sectors, including molding, stamping, die casting and precision machining. We then apply that data to help your company establish appropriate benchmarks for business and operations.
Our tools include:
- Commodity research
- Market research
- Customer insights
- Forecast information
- Competitor research
- Equipment and technology research
- Manufacturing site analysis
- Key metrics benchmarking
Manufacturing operations
Manufacturers today face rising complexity — from cost pressures and supply chain volatility to workforce gaps and digital transformation. Wipfli helps bring clarity with data-driven solutions to improve performance and enhance visibility.
Whether you’re optimizing processes, improving cost accuracy or leveraging data, our services help you make smarter decisions and achieve measurable results.
Achieving operational excellence requires you to align your people, processes and technology with delivering value and profitability. Wipfli can help you maintain that alignment by looking past your day-to-day challenges to identify sustainable solutions.
Our operational excellence services include support for:
- Process improvement, including Lean and Six Sigma methodologies.
- Analyzing your operations and providing relevant benchmarking, best practices and actionable recommendations.
- Supporting your implementation of the right software and processes.
Wipfli’s job costing workshops can help you gain a complete picture of costs while keeping them aligned with both pricing and profitability.
Many manufacturers have found themselves challenged to gain a complete picture of what it truly costs to manufacture and deliver finished products to their customers, compared to the revenue generated or even the quoted price — but they don’t have the time or resources to commit to such an undertaking.
Wipfli helps you gain crucial visibility into your processes and costs. Our job costing solution includes:
- A two-day workshop: During our two-day operational workshop with your team, we break down the components of your manufacturing activities, review your cost pools and analyze how they relate to one another. Then we identify the drivers of your overhead and what percentage of that overhead should actually come from your manufacturing process.
- Recommendations: We then provide you with a list of recommendations for improvements. Each manufacturer is different, and our recommendations are completely tailored to your situation. What’s more, we simulate for you what making the recommended changes will do to your overall performance — allowing you to not only more comfortably make ideal changes but also grow profitably in the future.
Manufacturers face increasing pressure to maximize asset productivity and minimize losses, yet many still lack the visibility needed to make informed decisions on the shop floor. Wipfli’s production monitoring solutions empower manufacturers to transform raw machine data into actionable insights. By capturing real-time data on machine utilization and maintenance needs, these tools enable faster, more informed decision-making.
Our services include:
- Guided implementation that helps ensure timely, accurate configurations, supports staff education and helps you start leveraging data faster.
- Performance analysis support that helps increase data literacy and provides coaching over your data so that you’re equipped to leverage it in improving performance.
- Driving change with in-person support and staff augmentation that can help you facilitate change and leverage data to make smarter decisions.
As interest rates rise and raw material costs fluctuate, monitoring cash flow is key. Wipfli’s inventory management solutions can help you optimize inventory levels to improve your financial standing, achieve significant savings and free up capital.
Our inventory management services include:
Data readiness and AI assessment
Effective data management and governance are nonnegotiable for smarter manufacturing and optimized inventory management. Our knowledge of ERP platforms, data, AI and robust digital systems can help mid-market manufacturers unlock the full potential of technology and achieve measurable results.
We focus on three critical areas:
- Data infrastructure understanding: We analyze your data management program, pinpointing strengths and areas for improvement.
- Data governance best practices: We help ensure accurate and available data through robust governance practices.
- Operational gap analysis: We assess your strategy, people, processes and technology to identify gaps. Our recommendations pave the way for strategic improvements.
Data visualization proof of concept
Let Wipfli demonstrate the potential value of your data by displaying it in a cloud platform and creating insightful dashboards. We’ll help you understand how to visualize your historical data for better decision-making around production and inventory management.
Our team
Laurie Harbour
Laurie Harbour is a partner with more than 35 years of manufacturing and consulting experience. Prior to joining Wipfli, she was the co-owner of Harbour Results, Inc., and has spent her career helping clients develop strategies, improve operations, reduce risk and optimize business performance. Clients benefit from Laurie’s ability to work with leadership teams to assess the current state of their business and provide strategic and operation recommendations for improvement.
Scott Walton
Scott Walton is a partner with more than 35 years of manufacturing and consulting experience. Previously the co-owner of Harbour Results, Inc., he has spent his career helping strengthen the North American manufacturing industry through strategic and operational improvements and risk reduction. His experience in strategic planning, operations management, lean manufacturing, finance and supply chain management enables him to help clients navigate challenging business environments. Scott has expertise in restructuring businesses with a focus on quickly diagnosing issues and developing a turnaround plan to drive profitability.
Mike Devereux, CPA, CMP
Mike Devereux has identified millions of dollars in tax incentives for manufacturing clients, led hundreds of research and development (R&D) tax credit study engagements and demonstrated leadership and exceptional judgment in the tax structuring of various acquisitions. He speaks nationally to various professional and industry trade organizations and associations about opportunities to reduce federal and state tax liabilities and has written dozens of articles for trade publications.
Brett Polglaze
Brett Polglaze brings over 20 years of experience to Wipfli’s organizational performance management consulting team and has a passion for tackling complex organizational questions. From improving business process flows to assisting clients through complex system selections, his focus has always been to architect solutions that solve critical business issues. He has led all aspects of technology selection, implementation, and operations improvement initiatives.
Gene Mussel
Gene Mussel is a director at Wipfli with extensive experience in plastics manufacturing. He utilizes data analytics to identify opportunities for business and operational improvements and helps implement strategies to improve efficiency and profitability. Additionally, Mussel’s marketplace and merger and acquisition expertise are utilized to support client strategies to build or diversify their holdings.
Implement the right systems for success
We helped Jones Sign select an ERP that helped them unify data and eliminate manual processes across seven facilities.
