From shipping clerk to ERP architect
“The big manufacturers run on operational discipline they’ve built over decades. You don’t need their headcount to get it — you need it right-sized for your shop. That’s what I do.”
| # | Role | What I Learned |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Shipping Clerk | Where it started. On the floor, moving product. |
| 2 | Receiving Lead | Learned how material flow breaks down at the dock. |
| 3 | Stockroom Supervisor | First leadership role. Inventory accuracy, team accountability |
| 4 | Planner | Demand, supply, and the cost of bad data. |
| 5 | Warehouse Manager | Operations at scale. Cross-functional pressure. |
| 6 | Master Scheduler | Bridging operations and executive decisions. |
| 7 | Production Control Manager | Owned the production system, not just the schedule. |
| 8 | Materials Manager | Full supply chain ownership across the enterprise. |
| 9 | ERP Implementation Consultant | First advisory role. Helped manufacturers select and implement systems. |
| 10 | Sr. Solutions Analyst | Deep technical and process work across multiple ERP platforms. |
| 11 | ERP Architect | Designed enterprise systems end-to-end. Where I am today. |
Every one of those roles is in a manufacturing environment. I did not come to this work from IT, consulting, or software. I came from the floor.
At a manufacturer of laser light sources used in semiconductor fabrication — products priced at $700,000 each — I identified that supply planning was running sequentially behind the engineering design process. That meant weeks of avoidable delay before a single component was ordered. I redesigned the process so supply planning ran in parallel with design. The result: 16 weeks removed from the new product development release cycle. The company benefited. Program directors hit their targets. I got a thank-you. That is exactly how this work is supposed to go.
At a $50M manufacturer supplying specialized welding systems to Ford, Tesla, and BMW, I led a full Plex ERP implementation from the ground up. This was not a partial rollout. Every department went live: manufacturing, quality, engineering configuration management, sales, marketing, and accounting. We also built customer and vendor portals so buyers could place orders and suppliers could confirm receipts directly in the system. When it was over, they had one system of truth across the entire business. That is what a real implementation looks like.
When you bring me in, you are not getting someone who read about manufacturing. You are getting someone who has held the clipboard, built the schedule, owned the inventory variance, and sat in the room when the ERP went live and the data was wrong. I know where the problems hide because I have been responsible for fixing them — not as a consultant watching from the outside, but as the person whose name was on the line. That is a different kind of advisor.
Principal Advisor | Business Systems Architect | Manufacturing & Operations | Helping Owners Replace Spreadsheets with Scalable Systems
Most operational problems are not software problems. They are business problems that eventually show up in the numbers. I’ve spent 20+ years inside manufacturing operations working through planning failures, inventory issues, weak controls, bad data, broken handoffs, and the daily friction that quietly drains cash, margin, and trust across a business. What I’ve seen repeatedly: Inaccurate BOMs driving bad planning. Inventory nobody fully trusts. Engineering, purchasing, production, service, and accounting all working from different versions of reality. Leaders trying to make important decisions without clear visibility into what is actually happening inside the business. That is when workarounds take over. Firefighting becomes normal. Cash gets tied up. Margins get thinner. Confidence in the operation starts to erode. I work with owners, CFOs, COOs, and operating leaders to help them see clearly what is actually broken, where the risk is coming from, and what needs to change to restore control, visibility, and decision confidence. No software agenda. No implementation agenda. No sales pitch. Just lived experience inside the kind of operational problems that affect performance, cash flow, and growth. This industry was part of my life long before it became my profession, which gives me a practical understanding of manufacturing that is hard to fake and even harder to replace. If this sounds familiar, we should talk.
