The Allied Advisors Podcast

The Allied Advisors Podcast is designed for mid-market manufacturers looking to scale and sharpen their competitive edge. Each episode features in-depth conversations with lean manufacturing experts and top-performing manufacturing executives who share proven strategies, hard-earned lessons, and real-world success stories. Our goal is simple: every listener walks away with practical insights they can apply immediately to drive growth, improve efficiency, and lead their teams more effectively.

The Allied Advisors Podcast is a business podcast hosted by Justin Goethe, with 29 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80.

Justin Goethe hosts The Allied Advisors Podcast, a business show with 29 episodes published.

Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.

• 

  The Allied Advisors Podcast

  Ops vs. the Model: Turnarounds, Lean Culture, and Automation on a PE Timeline with Otis Spencer Jr.

  Sep 30, 202644 min

  Episode Summary What happens to a portfolio company when the operating partner's voice carries less weight than the investment thesis? Otis Spencer Jr. has seen that question from both sides of the table, first as an operating partner at GenNx360 Capital Partners and then as the CEO of a PE-backed industrial business. Justin and Otis dig into how unrealistic diligence assumptions end up on the operations team's desk, why the ops and investment sides of a firm need to speak with one voice, and what it takes to build a lean culture on a three-to-five-year hold. Otis also walks through a turnaround he calls "a dog fight," where the company came out of a restructuring with a clean balance sheet but couldn't get the credit it needed to stock long-lead parts and shorten delivery times. He explains how he worked through lenders and critical suppliers to get the business moving again. The conversation closes with his case for automation as a quality and safety tool, and the lessons from 13 years as an Army logistics officer that he kept and the ones he had to unlearn. About the Guest Otis Spencer Jr. is a turnaround CEO, operating partner, and industrial executive with more than 30 years of experience leading PE-backed transformations and complex global operations. Most recently he served as President and CEO of Schramm Inc., where he navigated severe liquidity and supply chain crises, grew revenue from $29 million to $54 million, and guided the business to a successful sale. He quadrupled EBITDA for an aviation MRO platform from $16 million to $60 million, and at TAMKO Building Products he doubled division EBITDA to $80 million while growing revenue to $250 million. Otis spent 13 years as a US Army logistics officer and earned a Bronze Star for commanding a 1,500-person task force during Operation Iraqi Freedom, where he stood up the first wartime containerized fuel pipeline and terminal distribution system in Iraq and Kuwait. He holds a BS in industrial engineering from the University of Alabama and an MBA from Saint Martin's University. Key Takeaways Put operations in the diligence room. When ops isn't part of valuation and diligence, the model fills up with assumptions like a new plant reaching peak output in year one or heavy price increases every year. The firm overpays, and the operating team inherits targets it was never going to hit. Operations estimates run optimistic. Teams routinely underestimate project effort by about half, which is why experienced operators need to pressure-test the plan before it becomes the thesis. The firm needs to speak with one voice. If management can go around the operating partner to the deal lead whenever they dislike an answer, the credibility of the CEO and ops team erodes fast. Lockstep alignment between the ops and investment sides keeps that from happening. Lean culture starts with CEO buy-in. On a short hold, buying a new machine is always the more exciting story. Lean takes hold when the CEO treats it as a way of life, and an early Kaizen win builds the confidence to keep going. You can't improve what you haven't measured. Many mid-market plants track little beyond revenue, cost, and on-time delivery. Bringing in help up front to install a few critical KPIs, and sharing what they uncover without playing gotcha, turns early embarrassment into engagement. A clean balance sheet doesn't guarantee working capital. After a restructuring, lenders may not line up and the fund may be low on dry powder. Otis worked the firm's lender relationships, then specialty lenders, and finally key suppliers like Caterpillar, who helped with terms in exchange for future volume. Automation is a quality and safety play. Reducing process variation means less material, less downtime, and less startup scrap, and it keeps hands away from lines running 700 feet per minute. Framing it that way, and sharing the gains with the operators who remain, earns the buy-in a headcount story never will. Keep the military training and let go of the rank. Formal training in planning, decision-making, and staying calm under pressure has paid off at every stop. What Otis had to unlearn was the expectation that people act because you're the boss. In industry, results come from knowing people individually, and sometimes from making the hard call to get the right people on the bus. Quotable Moments "All those returns that you finger painted into the model, you probably won't reach." (Otis) "You want to have solidarity from the firm." (Otis) "It's a way of life. It's not just a project." (Otis) "You can't make an improvement without having baseline data." (Otis) "Lean manufacturing is a religion. You gotta believe in it first, and then you gotta try your best to practice it for a long time before you really start seeing the results." (Justin) "Us manufacturing guys were kind of the first AI folks." (Otis) "Everybody hits the door with their own set of problems." (Otis) "We can all talk theory till we're blue in the face, but the realistic side of this is what's really important." (Otis) Topics Covered [00:00] Introduction and Otis's background [02:00] What it costs a portfolio company when ops isn't on equal footing with the investment team [06:30] Large-cap long-term thinking versus the PE hold period [08:30] Why management shouldn't be able to go around the operating partner [11:00] Aligning on a common philosophy, and why CapEx is an easier story than cutting waste [15:30] Quick wins, missing KPIs, and building baseline data [20:30] The "dog fight" turnaround and financing after a restructuring [28:00] Automation as a quality and safety enabler [34:30] Army lessons Otis kept and the ones he had to unlearn [42:00] Making the hard calls on people, and closing thoughts Resources & Links Otis Spencer Jr. on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/otis-spencer-jr-0763a563/ Concepts discussed: Lean, Kaizen, Six Sigma, Statistical Process Control (SPC), Deming, OEE Connect With Allied Advisors Website: alliedadvisors.io Email: jgoethe@alliedgroup.io If you enjoyed this conversation, please like, subscribe, and share the show with a friend. It really does help.

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  The Allied Advisors Podcast

  Butt Ugly by Friday: How the Kaizen Ninja Makes Improvements Stick with Adam Lawrence

  Sep 16, 202646 min

  Episode Summary Most improvement projects die quietly after the consultant leaves. Adam Lawrence built a framework to stop that from happening. Known across the manufacturing world as the Kaizen Ninja, Adam has facilitated more than 400 Kaizen events, driving over half a billion dollars in business impact. His events average roughly $1.2 million in annual savings apiece, and he runs them in a week or less. In this conversation, Adam walks Justin through how he actually runs a Kaizen week: two hours of level setting, then straight to the Gemba with the people doing the work as his guides. Post-its and Sharpies instead of technical jargon. Rapid experiments instead of perfect plans. He calls the standard "butt ugly by Friday," and the point is speed of learning, not polish. The heart of the episode is sustainability. Adam breaks down the nine elements of his Wheel of Sustainability, the framework behind his book, and then explains why he recently blew up his own assessment and rebuilt it around five observable leadership behaviors instead. His marketing team told him the wheel was too hard to see in the field. He agreed. The two also dig into safety as a lean principle, not a compliance program. Adam shares how Armstrong World Industries drove its global OSHA recordable rate from 4.5 to 0.28, and why he now requires every team member in a Kaizen event to make two personal safety improvements before Friday. If you have ever watched a good improvement quietly disappear six months later, this one is for you. About the Guest Adam Lawrence is the founder of Process Improvement Partners and the author of The Wheel of Sustainability. An industrial engineer by training, he spent nearly 30 years at Armstrong World Industries, starting on the floor at Thomasville Furniture and working across multiple continents to become Global Lean Champion for the Building Products Technology Group. He struck out on his own in 2018 and has since facilitated more than 400 Kaizen events worldwide. His work has been featured in Industry Week, Aerospace America, and Artisan Spirit. He operates out of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. His core belief is simple. The real solutions to business problems do not come from conference rooms. They come from the people doing the work. Key Takeaways Go see, do not debate. Adam describes a plant manager and his team arguing over the location of a post on an AutoCAD drawing. Five minutes at the Gemba answered it, and revealed the post would have blocked their entire concept. Going to see cuts the time by a factor of ten and shows your people you take them seriously. Butt ugly by Friday beats perfect by never. The goal of a Kaizen week is many rapid learning cycles, not one polished solution. Teams try, fail, learn, and try again. By Friday they have something safer and easier that they own, even if it is not pretty. The team is the people doing the work. Adam uses only two Japanese terms all week, Kaizen and Gemba. Everything else stays plain. Post-its and Sharpies mean anyone can contribute without feeling unqualified. Sustainability is a system, not a follow-up meeting. The Wheel of Sustainability has nine elements: leadership commitment, notification, training and review, visible evidence, all tools available, clear benefits, daily layered audits, accountability, and recognition. All nine get applied to the change during the week itself. Notification is about why, not what. Anyone can see a workstation looks different. What matters is whether the operator can tell you why it changed and what it does for them. Build visible evidence you can read from 30 feet. Outlines, labels, Andon lights, flags. If you cannot tell from a distance whether someone is working to standard, you cannot coach them back to it. Audit with people, not at them. A good layered audit takes three to five minutes, checks three things together, and often surfaces the next improvement. Accountability runs both directions. Coach people back to standard, and thank the people already there. Charter means blanket approval, not marching orders. Leaders define the problem and why solving it matters. They do not hand the team a solution. That distinction is what makes ownership possible. Adam replaced his own framework with observable behaviors. After his marketing team told him the wheel was too abstract, he rebuilt his assessment around five things you can go watch: people become part of the change, leadership at the Gemba, owning the change, earning trust, and growing the improvement culture. Fifteen questions, and each score comes with something you can act on without calling him. Earning trust means nothing waits. Adam needed a label printer mid-event. The maintenance manager dropped what he was doing, found one in another building, and carried it over himself. That is what leadership having your back looks like in practice. Safety is the inarguable principle. Every Kaizen event includes a personal objective: two safety improvements per team member, demonstrated by Friday. It applies to roughly 95 percent of Adam's events regardless of scope or industry. Safety is also the sustainability argument. Ask a sponsor whether they are willing to go back to a less safe way of working. Nobody says yes. That answer is the leverage that keeps the rest of the improvement in place. Lean is not a toolkit. The goal is not 5S or a plan for every part. The goal is an organization that keeps learning, because the environment never stops changing. Batches shift, machines wear, people turn over. Entropy wins if you stop adding energy. Quotable Moments "The real solutions to business problems don't come from conference rooms. They come from the people doing the work." "Butt ugly by Friday. Don't wait for perfection. Try something, see what you learn." "My Gemba tolerance is about five minutes." "I am an acquired taste." "You can't get better if you aren't willing to learn how to get better." "If you can't get safety right, you can't get anything right." "Are you willing to go back to a less safe way of working? Well, what are you going to say? Sure, let's hurt more people." "They said this really needs to be based on observable leadership behaviors. Crap. That actually makes sense." "Stop letting perfect be the enemy of better." (Justin) Topics Covered How Adam structures a Kaizen week, from level setting to Friday implementation Why he limits himself to two Japanese terms and keeps everything else plain The AutoCAD post story and what it teaches about analysis paralysis Virtual Gemba and finding waste in administrative and IT processes The nine elements of the Wheel of Sustainability Why he threw out his original sustainability assessment and rebuilt it The five observable leadership behaviors that predict whether a change sticks Preparing leaders for their role before, during, and after an event Improv sessions on day three as a teaching tool Safety as a lean principle and the Armstrong journey from 4.5 to 0.28 Biggest results: bottleneck eliminations that doubled output, a $1.4 million quality check improvement Why some organizations never get there Resources & Links The Wheel of Sustainability by Adam Lawrence - Click Here Process Improvement Partners: http://www.pi-partners.com Click Here for Adam's sustainability assessment: 15 questions built on observable leadership behaviors Connect with Adam Lawrence on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-t-lawrence/ Connect With Allied Advisors The Allied Advisors Podcast is the podcast for mid-market manufacturers looking to scale operations and improve that ever important bottom line. Website: alliedadvisors.io Email: jgoethe@alliedgroup.io If you enjoyed this episode, please like, subscribe, and share it with a friend. It helps us reach more people and support others on their manufacturing journeys.

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  The Allied Advisors Podcast

  The $2 Million Answer to a $200,000 Problem: Building the AI Business Case Before You Buy with Lisa Moses and Priya Ponmudi, Veritas Growth Consulting

  Sep 2, 202634 min

  Episode Summary Eighty-five percent of companies are investing in AI. Fewer than six percent see a return in year one. In this episode, Justin sits down with Lisa Moses and Priya Ponmudi, partners at Veritas Growth Consulting, to unpack why the gap is that wide and what mid-market manufacturers should do about it. Between them they have run supply chain and operations at Kids2, HelloFresh, Amazon, Tech Data, and across European manufacturers. Their answer starts with a question most leaders skip: what are you actually trying to solve? Cost, service, or people. If the honest answer is a broken process, dirty data, or a discipline problem, AI will not fix it. It will just make it look pretty. They cover where AI already pays for itself in supply chain, where it is flatly the wrong tool, how to build a financial model that survives contact with a CFO, and the cost curve nobody is pricing in yet. If you are an owner or ops leader feeling the pressure to "do something about AI," this is the conversation to hear first. About the Guests Lisa Moses has spent 25 years on the side of the loading dock most manufacturers only think about when something goes wrong. She is Managing Director of Veritas Growth Consulting, the global supply chain practice she launched this January with Priya, following 14 years at SIBA Logistics, where she grew an account portfolio from $3 million to $24 million. Most recently she was VP of Warehousing and Logistics at Kids2, running seven 3PL operations across six countries on a distribution spend north of $25 million a year. She holds an MBA in international business from the University of Miami and is based in Tampa. Her argument is simple: your logistics network is not a call center you inherited. It is a design decision you are either making on purpose or making by accident. Priya Ponmudi is an industrial engineer who has spent 30 years making distribution networks move faster, and she got there by way of the floor. She spent 16 years at Tech Data running the North America Engineering Division across six logistics centers on a $65 million budget, then moved to Amazon as a senior manager, where her team optimized truck utilization across 75 sortation centers against a $1.4 billion spend and booked $136 million in projected savings. As a director at HelloFresh she led a network-wide labor initiative that delivered $11 million a year. She holds a master's in industrial engineering from Florida International University and is based in Atlanta. Her current focus is where AI and machine learning meet the warehouse floor. Lisa and Priya have known each other for roughly 20 years. Priya was Lisa's client long before they were partners. Quotable Moments "We look at AI as a technological investment versus an operating model." Priya Ponmudi "They can plug AI into all that all they want, but it's not going to fix the core problem. AI is just going to make it look pretty, but it's still going to be bad data with bad processes." Lisa Moses "It stops you from using a $2 million investment to solve a $200,000 problem." Priya Ponmudi "Where they could get the most benefit is the non-sexy stuff, the stuff in the back office." Lisa Moses "If you don't do that, you're just kind of lighting money on fire in a ditch." Justin Goethe "We might all be sent back to tech school to learn to weld instead of learn to code." Justin Goethe Topics Covered (03:00) The first question to ask back when a CEO says "we need AI" (04:32) The automotive manufacturer that generated hundreds of AI ideas and no business case (05:27) AI as an operating model, the cost / service / people framework, and computer vision on the trailer queue when safety outranks ROI (07:33) Why fewer than six percent see a first-year return (08:15) Process, data, and discipline problems that AI cannot solve (08:56) Broken processes, data quality, executive ownership, and the full cost of implementation (11:50) Justin on learning to vet the business case before writing the software (13:16) DMAIC as the template for an AI business case (14:32) Where AI is the wrong tool, and how to tell a client so (15:29) Demand planning, load optimization, and container visibility: the fast wins (18:30) Automating demand planners out of existence, and what that does to the consumer (20:11) Tariffs at Kids2: from zero to five percent to fifty percent in a week (22:04) The K-shaped economy and the shrinking purchasing market (24:04) Priya on the COVID parallel and where policy may have to step in (26:46) Data centers, the grid, the water, and separating fact from narrative (30:12) Pricing in a 20 to 50 percent increase in AI costs over five years (31:38) How Veritas runs an assessment before AI ever enters the conversation Resources & Links Veritas Growth Consulting: global supply chain practice founded January 2026 by Lisa Moses and Priya Ponmudi Nitro Supply Chain Solutions: Priya Ponmudi, partner https://www.nitrosupplychain.com/ LinkedIn: Lisa Moses: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisa-moses-385aba8/ LinkedIn: Priya Ponmudi: https://www.linkedin.com/in/priya-ponmudi-8831b47/ Mentioned: prior Allied Advisors episode with Winfred Rocksteiner on the automation of demand planning https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-allied-advisors-podcast/id1833287030?i=1000732961761 Connect With Allied Advisors Have a question or want to talk about scaling your operation? Justin would love to hear from you. Email: jgoethe@alliedgroup.io Web: alliedadvisors.io Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  The Allied Advisors Podcast

  Playing Like a Battleship at Speedboat Scale: PE Value Creation with Rick Brawn

  Aug 5, 202644 min

  Here you go — plain text you can copy straight into your podcast host, YouTube, or Substack: THE ALLIED ADVISORS PODCAST Playing Like a Battleship at Speedboat Scale: PE Value Creation with Rick Brawn Guest: Rick Brawn, Operating Partner, MiddleGround Capital Host: Justin Goethe EPISODE OVERVIEW Rick Brawn has a manufacturing dream resume: he came up through the most disciplined corners of aerospace at Pratt & Whitney and Rolls-Royce, then carried that operational rigor into private equity — first at LFM Capital, and today as an operating partner at MiddleGround Capital. In this conversation, Rick and Justin dig into what actually transfers from large-cap OEMs down to the mid-market, how value-creation plans get built and bought into after a deal closes, and why the biggest wins often live across a portfolio rather than inside any single plant. Along the way: a $130M portfolio-wide freight play, a masterclass in change management that boils down to "people are people," and a candid look at how MiddleGround is putting Claude and AI to work — while double-checking every answer. WHAT YOU'LL LEARN Which aerospace best practices copy-and-paste into the mid-market — and where they break down Why founders skip process documentation (hint: it's a values gap, not a cost gap) How MiddleGround builds a Value Creation Plan (VCP) and earns management buy-in from day one The portfolio-scale freight play: finding $26M in savings no single plant could reach How to run league tables, Kaizen boot camps, and cross-selling to force best-practice adoption A practical, no-hype way for a standalone manufacturer to use AI for spend and cost visibility TOPICS & TIMESTAMPS 00:00 — Introduction: Rick's path from Pratt & Whitney and Rolls-Royce to LFM and MiddleGround Capital 02:00 — Aerospace to the mid-market: what copies down from large-cap OEMs, and where resources and documentation break down 03:30 — Cost vs. values: why small and mid-market firms under-invest in process creation 05:30 — The PE stigma: why the "they just bring money" perception is unearned in industrials 08:00 — The Value Creation Plan (VCP): sharing the plan post-close and opening the canvas to build buy-in 10:30 — Culture integration: PE-owned vs. first-time founder companies; the Lindsay Precast success story 13:30 — People are people: change management from the shop floor to the boardroom, and the red hose lesson 17:00 — Portfolio-wide value creation: the $130M freight spend across 200+ factories and a 20% / $26M target 20:00 — Hidden leaks beyond freight: insurance, tax, tariff recovery, and consolidating renewal dates 24:00 — AI & Claude in the real world: plugging into ERP/AP data for spend visibility — and double-checking the work 29:00 — Capturing tribal knowledge: the 30-year toolmaker's drawings fed into an LLM for the next generation 31:00 — League tables & conferences: OpEx, Sales & Purchasing, and CEO/CFO conferences that drive healthy competition 35:00 — Kaizen boot camps & cross-selling: quarterly week-long events with tracked takeaways; keeping business "in the family" 38:00 — Strategy deployment: portfolio- and fund-level planning, three-to-five years out 42:00 — Closing thoughts: "MiddleGround is Bosch" — delivering value at scale KEY TAKEAWAYS Operations boils down to the basics. Continuous improvement, pricing methodology, and margin analysis transfer to any manufacturer, regardless of what they make. Process documentation is a values gap, not a cost gap. Founders often don't see the value in writing down processes — the unlock large-cap OEMs and PE both understand is that documentation is what makes a business scalable. Buy-in beats mandates. Sharing the VCP and inviting the management team to add to it produces a more complete plan and far more ownership. Scale creates value single plants can't see. Aggregating spend across 200+ factories — freight, insurance, tax, benefits — surfaces savings no individual company could find alone. AI lowers the barrier to that same analysis. A standalone manufacturer can feed AP and PO data to an LLM and get spend-vs-market insight that used to require a corporate team — as long as the output is verified. Competition drives adoption. League tables, awards, and tracked Kaizen takeaways turn best practices into implemented change — a discipline any multi-site manufacturer can copy across its own plants. NOTABLE QUOTES "Operations really does boil down to some of the basics when you look at it, no matter what you manufacture." "We're basically coaches on the sideline. We're not the players on the field — and to coach effectively, you've got to understand what they're looking for." "Nobody was looking at it in aggregate. Just shipping product out the door from our 200-plus factories is about $130 million in spend." "You don't need me to teach you how to use AI. AI will teach you how to use AI — just start using it. The challenge is you've got to double-check its work." "If MiddleGround companies knew what MiddleGround companies know, you would be unstoppable." RESOURCES & MENTIONS MiddleGround Capital — operationally focused PE firm founded in 2018; ~15 portfolio companies, 200+ factories Rick Brawn on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/operatingpartner/ Lindsay Precast (Gainesville, FL) — precast concrete manufacturer and MiddleGround exit; founder Ron Lindsay Prior episode — Bill Maroney, Freight Think (freight cost and logistics) Prior episode — Steve Cook, LFM Capital Referenced concepts: United Technologies / Raytheon "ACE" (Achieving Competitive Excellence); Toyota Production System; league tables; Kaizen boot camps Enjoyed this conversation? Like, subscribe, and share The Allied Advisors Podcast with a friend.

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  Episode #25

  The Systemic Improvement Cycle: Turning Strategy Into Sustainable Improvement

  Jul 22, 202634 minS1

  Format: Solocast with host Justin Goethe Best experienced on: YouTube (this episode references on-screen slides) Episode Summary Episode 25 marks a milestone, and to celebrate it Justin comes back to the heart of what Allied Advisors does: the Systemic Improvement Cycle (System CIP) — the framework for turning strategy into structured, sustainable improvement that outlasts any one person. Most continuous improvement efforts quietly drift. Companies launch a lean initiative or a Six Sigma rollout, see early wins, and then watch the gains evaporate within a year or two. As Justin lays out, that's not a people problem or a culture problem — it's a systems problem. Drawing on frameworks used inside world-class manufacturers, he walks through the four must-haves every CI program needs, the 90-day cadence that keeps teams accountable, and the practical tools that make improvement real on the shop floor: value stream mapping, the KPI tree, the project A3, and the plan-do-check-act discipline that ties it all together. Whether you're just starting your lean journey or fighting to make hard-won gains stick, this episode gives you a clear, repeatable path forward. In This Episode (00:00) Welcome and the 25th-episode milestone (01:30) PDCA at the core — running improvement cycles at ever-tightening frequencies, from the 30,000-foot view down to the shift level (02:30) Why everything runs on 90-day cycles (and why a one-year deadline gets you nothing) (03:30) Setting the vision: the three focus topics — business requirements, market requirements, and vision (05:00) Choosing your timeline and designing a future-state value stream (aim for a 12-month look) (05:45) Current-state value stream mapping — and why you walk it backwards, from shipping to receiving (08:00) The weekly roadmap cadence: where real accountability is built (09:30) Process validation — proving the new standard actually holds (10:30) Daily management — monitoring, reacting, and feeding learnings into the next cycle (11:00) Why CI programs fail: the four must-haves of any CI system (13:00) Where the cycle fits — the tactical bridge between strategy and execution (14:30) The three workshop deliverables: value stream map, project roadmap, and project A3 (15:30) KPRs, department KPIs, and process KPIs explained (16:30) Building the current-state map — and why it gets you into the gemba (18:00) Value stream design: push vs. pull, supermarkets, and production leveling (19:45) Anatomy of a project roadmap — one owner per project, always (22:00) The KPI tree: arguably the most important tool in your lean toolbox (25:00) Hallmarks of a strong project A3 (and why charts beat paragraphs) (29:00) Common pitfalls that knock programs off course (32:30) The Allied Advisors Fractional CI Manager (FCIM) program Key Takeaways Break work into 90-day cycles. A project due a year out gets no attention today. Ninety-day increments keep the tension on and force week-over-week progress. Go to the gemba. The current-state map matters because it pulls you out of the conference room and onto the shop floor — where the problems are and where the solutions live. Every CI system needs four things: a way to derive the right projects, a way to manage execution, a way to validate results, and a way to sustain standards. Miss the last two and you're left with a wish list. The weekly roadmap meeting is where the rubber meets the road. It's the accountability engine most improvement programs are missing. Every project gets one owner — one name, not a department. What's everyone's responsibility is no one's responsibility. The project A3 forces clarity. A one-page document that aligns the team on scope, drives weekly follow-up, and doubles as a marketing tool at review time. A KPI tree tells you which lever to pull. It maps the hierarchy from profit down to the shop-floor behaviors that drive it, so you know you're working on the right things. Tools & Frameworks Mentioned PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) — the discipline underneath the entire cycle Value Stream Mapping — current state and future-state design Project Roadmap — the prioritized list of 90-day projects Project A3 — one-page project management tool (background/business case, current state, future state, approach, metrics) KPI Tree — hierarchy of key performance results, department KPIs, and process KPIs Production leveling, supermarkets, takt time, changeover (SMED) — value stream design concepts Common Pitfalls to Avoid Skipping the value stream map and jumping straight to initiatives — you end up solving problems that don't exist Taking on too many priorities for the resources you have Launching projects without a single named owner Filling out A3s as wallpaper instead of using them to manage the work Skipping the weekly roadmap meeting — almost a guarantee of failure About the Fractional CI Manager Program Allied Advisors' FCIM program helps mid-market manufacturers build a culture of continuous improvement inside the teams they already have — rather than renting expensive consultants who run projects and leave. Over a 12-month engagement, Allied comes on site four times a year to facilitate System CIP workshops, coaches teams through weekly roadmap reviews and project A3s, and mentors your people so the capability becomes self-sustaining. The goal isn't to give you a fish; it's to teach you to fish. Connect With Justin Have a question about anything in this episode, or want to talk through where to start? Justin would love to hear from you. Email: jgoethe@alliedgroup.io Web: https://alliedadvisors.io/podcast Referenced episode: The Daily Leadership Routine (for more on process validation and daily management) If you enjoyed this episode, please like, subscribe, and share it with a colleague — it genuinely helps the show reach more manufacturers.

  ListenShow Notes

Recent guests on The Allied Advisors Podcast. Study who booked and why before you pitch.

Based on semantic analysis of episode topics and host coverage, this show is a strong guest fit for executives in:

Industry fit is computed by PitchCentric using vector embeddings of the show's episode catalog.