Case Study
Leading Designer, Manufacturer, and Marketer of Performance-Driven, High-Quality, Innovative Ammunition Products Optimizes Performance to Maximize Business Valuation and Selling Price
$50M
Incremental Transaction Value Created
Strategic Imperative
To enable predictable business performance through optimization of manufacturing performance to support core business demand, resulting in a run-rate unit production increase of 50%+ and a profit improvement of $10M
Client Background
- Largest online marketplace dedicated to firearms, hunting, shooting, and related products, with an ammunition manufacturing unit
- The manufacturing unit was being prepared for divestiture and maximum business valuation
- Capital equipment investments enabled a broad range of ammunition product capabilities across the manufacturing footprint
- Ownership had pursued internal improvement efforts, but needed faster performance acceleration before a planned sale
- CEO insight led to external support to strengthen business performance and drive a sale price above expectations
- Performance improvement opportunity centered on run-rate unit production, profit improvement, and sale-readiness expectations
Key Issues & Barriers
- Sales forecasting was not effectively linked to production planning, creating instability between demand expectations and manufacturing execution
- Startup-oriented behaviors persisted despite several years of operation, limiting the discipline needed for predictable manufacturing performance
- Engineering discipline was insufficient to support product-level standards, routings, bills of material, and manufacturing repeatability
- Managerial maturity was low, requiring stronger leadership capability, tools, and methods to sustain daily execution
- Ownership impatience and divestiture pressure strained business relationships, contributing to reactive decisions and weaker performance outcomes
- Product complexity was not sufficiently aligned with manufacturing footprint economics, constraining throughput, profitability, and sale-readiness
Key Implementation Components
- Fully designed and implemented a robust and effective S&OP business process to link sales forecasting, production planning, capacity decisions, and manufacturing execution
- Rationalized the SKU portfolio and shaped revenue targets toward highly profitable products aligned with the manufacturing footprint
- Zero-based product-by-product routers and bills of material through rigorous engineering review to improve manufacturing standards, costing accuracy, and production repeatability
- Developed and fully implemented a top-to-bottom operational System for Managing to strengthen cadence, visibility, escalation, and daily performance accountability
- Coached a cohesive leadership team into place to improve alignment, managerial maturity, decision quality, and execution follow-through
- Upgraded talent organization tactics to routinely deliver the required levels of highly effective workforce operators
Benefits & Results
$50M
Incremental Transaction Value Created
55%
Throughput Improvement
18%
Yield Rate Improvement
22%
OTIF Improvement
25%
Employee Turnover Reduction