Fix Supplier Delivery. Cut Supplier Costs.
Expand Your Margins.
I'm a fractional operating partner for small and mid-sized manufacturers — bringing Fortune 100 procurement and operations discipline to companies that need the results without the $250K executive hire. 100% remote, zero permanent overhead.
Owner-CEOs & Presidents
$10M–$100M Manufacturers
Industrials & Distributors
PortCo Leadership Teams
Where Profit Gets Trapped
In most small and mid-sized manufacturers, the money isn't lost on the shop floor. It leaks out through the supply base and the gaps between departments — quietly, every single month.
Supplier Costs Climb While Delivery Slips
Tariffs, freight, and "annual adjustments" have compounded for years — while late shipments and missed commitments quietly disrupt production. Nobody has benchmarked your pricing against what world-class buyers actually pay.
Departments That Don’t Talk
Purchasing buys in bulk to chase paper discounts without checking with the factory floor. Sales promises dates operations can't hit. The disconnect creates bottlenecks, stalls delivery, and freezes cash in the wrong inventory.
No Room for a Full-Time Executive
A VP of Supply Chain costs $250K+ loaded, and your purchasing team is too busy expediting to run strategic sourcing. You need the outcome and the discipline — not another line on the org chart.
Unifying Sales, Sourcing, and Production
Most businesses do not need more top-line revenue to grow profit. They need to stop the cash leaks already inside their systems.
I bridge the gaps between your commercial pipeline, your purchasing calendar, and your shop-floor capacity. The result is a unified operating rhythm your team runs on its own — the same discipline I deployed across Fortune 100 factories, sized for a company your scale.
Sales Pipeline & DemandWhat You've Promised Customers
Operations & Capacity PlanningWhat the Floor Can Actually Deliver
Strategic Sourcing ExecutionBuying at the Right Cost, On Time
What's the Opportunity in Your Business?
Every dollar saved on supplier spend drops straight to the bottom line. To earn that same dollar through sales, you'd have to sell many times more. Move the inputs to size your own number.
$
%
Conservative 3%10%Aggressive 20%
×
$2.0M
Annual Savings — Straight to the Bottom Line
$25.0M
New Revenue You'd Need to Sell for the Same Profit
$10.0M
Added Business Value If You Sell
Revenue-equivalent assumes savings drop straight to profit while new revenue earns your net margin — the lower your margin, the more powerful every saved dollar becomes. Business value assumes savings are contracted and documented well enough to survive a buyer's diligence.
Ryan S. Howard
Fractional Operating Partner · Procurement & Operations · Six Sigma Black Belt
I spent 20 years inside Fortune 100 manufacturing — 17 of them at John Deere in global supply management, cost management, and operations leadership. I negotiated with suppliers across 22 countries, authored the company's global risk readiness audit system, and moved supply bases between factories without stopping a line.
Now I bring that same discipline to owner-led manufacturers and industrials who deserve it but could never justify the headcount. I do the work myself, coach your team while I'm in it, and leave behind a system that keeps running after I'm gone.
$55M
Direct Spend Category Portfolio Managed
$1.2B
Divisional Material Cost Forecast Directed
Fortune 100
Authored John Deere's Global Risk Readiness Audit System
22 Countries
200+ Companies & Global Sourcing Pipelines
How I Help
Practical, remote engagements built for owner-led manufacturers, industrial companies, and portfolio company leadership teams. Start small, prove the value, scale only if it's working.
No binders of advice. Every engagement ends with an installed system your team actually runs.
Operational Readiness Audit
A fixed-fee, non-invasive remote health check that stress-tests your supply base, purchasing workflows, and departmental handoffs against world-class manufacturing standards — so you know exactly where the money is before you spend a dollar chasing it.
What I Look At:
Using a proprietary adaptation of the John Deere global readiness framework, I don't review departments in isolation. I audit the handoffs where profit gets trapped: whether your sales commitments actually reach production scheduling, whether supplier lead times can support the volume you've promised, and where your spend is exposed to price creep, single-source risk, or chronic late delivery.
I use modern AI and data tooling across the whole engagement — cleaning messy exports, pulling structure out of scattered spreadsheets and systems, and turning manual reporting into something repeatable. Work that used to take a consulting team weeks takes days, which is why this costs a fraction of what a traditional firm would quote.
Supplier Cost, Delivery & Operational Flow Sprint
A focused 30-day engagement that goes after your highest-leverage spend categories, your worst-performing suppliers, and the internal bottlenecks slowing everything down — turning the roadmap into signed agreements, on-time deliveries, and a floor that flows.
On the Supply Side:
I build the should-cost analysis, run structured RFQs and benchmarking, and negotiate your priority categories with the same fact-based discipline I used on nine-figure Fortune 100 spend. Where incumbents won't move on price or performance, I identify and qualify alternatives — then manage the transition so savings land without disrupting production.
On the Operations Side:
I map where work actually gets stuck — order intake, scheduling, inventory positioning, the handoffs nobody owns — and apply Six Sigma process discipline to remove the constraint. Supplier scorecards and simple operating metrics go in alongside, so cost, delivery, and throughput become things you manage rather than things that surprise you.
Fractional Procurement & Operations Leadership
Executive-level procurement and operations leadership on a part-time, ongoing basis — for companies that need the capability but not the $250K salary, benefits, and org chart that come with it.
What That Looks Like:
I take ownership of your sourcing strategy and supplier relationships, install the cadence that keeps purchasing, sales, and production talking to each other, and coach your existing buyers to operate like enterprise-grade sourcing professionals. You get a seasoned operator in the seat for one to two days a week — long enough to build real capability, structured so I work myself out of a job rather than into a permanent retainer.
Custom Engagements & Targeted Projects
Have one specific problem rather than a broad one? I deploy remotely to solve targeted operational bottlenecks without requiring a full audit or a long commitment.
Common Requests:
- Second Set of Eyes — Plan Reviews: Independent review of a new leader's 90-day plan, a growth roadmap, or a stalled initiative — pressure-tested before you commit people and capital.
- Spend Cube Analysis: Aggregating and organizing messy purchasing data to find immediate cost synergies.
- Rapid Supplier Assessments: Deep-dive vetting of critical vendors to prevent fulfillment failures.
- RFQ & Supplier Benchmarking: Running structured sourcing events to test the market and lower unit costs.
- Contract Negotiation: Expert backing to negotiate and lock in high-stakes vendor agreements.
- Process & Throughput Improvement: Six Sigma-grade problem solving on a specific bottleneck — scheduling, order flow, inventory positioning, or a handoff nobody owns.
- Operating Cadence & KPI Setup: Installing the weekly rhythm and the handful of metrics that keep sales, purchasing, and production aligned.
- AI-Enabled Reporting & Workflows: Replacing manual spreadsheet work with practical AI-assisted tooling — cleaner data, faster reporting, less admin drag on your team.
- Strategic Account Growth: Buyer-side coaching to win and expand key OEM and enterprise accounts — insight from 17 years sitting on the customer's side of the table.
- Team Up-Skilling: Coaching lean internal purchasing teams to execute like enterprise-grade sourcing professionals.
- Acquisition Support: Spend and capacity diligence before you buy, or sourcing integration after you close — including preparing your own supply base to hold up under a buyer's scrutiny.
Most of my work is with manufacturers and industrials — but the same operating discipline travels. I also serve professional services firms and mission-driven organizations facing the same cost, vendor, and workflow problems. If that's you, bring it to the call.
Value Built on Lasting Foundations
Work is more than profit—it is a calling. Through my doctoral research in biblical studies (Ph.D.), I came to understand daily work as a ministry designed to develop leaders, build sustainable trust, and serve community health. This perspective guides how I lead, solve industrial problems, and construct corporate systems designed to create long-term value.
Host of Cutting Edge Faith, a globally ranked top-10% podcast on work, faith, and culture.
Stop the Leaks. Scale with Confidence.
Book a 30-minute operator call. Bring your biggest constraint — leave with a clear read on where the money is and what it would take to capture it. No pitch deck, no obligation.
Book Your Operator Call