Small & mid-sized Midwest manufacturers

Manufacturing problems don't stay in one lane. Neither do we.

Five independent firms, each responsible for a different part of a manufacturing business. Call one of us and you get whichever one the problem actually needs.

Reserve a seat, Oct 27 → How it works
WHAT THEY CALLED ABOUT "We're missing ship dates." THE SYMPTOM Plenty of inventory. Wrong inventory. MONTHS OF EXTRA SUPPLY Forecasting item by item. ONLY A HANDFUL PREDICTABLE The data underneath it. UPSTREAM OF THE SYMPTOM WHAT WAS ACTUALLY WRONG One symptom. A different lane underneath it.
Tue Oct 27 · Green Bay
Dinner the night before Manufacturing First. Buffet, cocktails, and fifty people who run manufacturing companies.
Reserve a seat →
Five lanes

One call reaches whichever lane the problem is actually in

YOUR COMPANY Planning & operationsSourcing & purchasingIT & dataFrontline workforceShipping & logistics
How it works
One call, not five

You do not have to work out which lane the problem is in before you ring us. We do that together, then the one or two of us it belongs to do the work.

Hover a lane to see who covers it

Planning & operations
VAST Insight Partners
Tyler Nielsen

Getting the forecast, the P&L and the floor onto one plan, so working capital stops sitting in inventory.

Sourcing & purchasing
Maverick
Jim Boldrey

Supplier costs, negotiation and nearshoring on spend nobody has challenged.

IT & data
SSR Total IT
Sarit Singhal

Infrastructure and cybersecurity underneath everything else, plus OpEX Betterment: quote to cash on one screen, pulled from whatever ERP you already run.

Frontline workforce
Secchi
Mike White

Coaching, recognition and attendance for the leaders closest to the work.

Shipping & logistics
Unishippers 1792
Tyler Marcus

Better rates, smarter tracking and white glove support, from quote to delivery.

Planning & operationsVAST Insight Partners · Tyler Nielsen→ Sourcing & purchasingMaverick · Jim Boldrey→ IT & dataSSR Total IT · Sarit Singhal→ Frontline workforceSecchi · Mike White→ Shipping & logisticsUnishippers 1792 · Tyler Marcus→
Sound familiar

You've probably said one of these

"We're missing shipments and I can't tell you why. We have plenty of inventory, it's just the wrong inventory."

"Every week is a fire drill. My planner lives in spreadsheets, and the system tells us we need parts the same day we need them."

"I know we're leaving money on the table with suppliers, but my team doesn't have the time to go after it."

"We've been buying from the same suppliers for years. Prices go up and we just accept it."

None of those is a planning problem, an IT problem, or a purchasing problem. That's just how the pain shows up.
How it works

You don't have to diagnose it before you call us

A sourcing problem is often a forecasting problem. A forecasting problem is often a systems or data problem. Manufacturing issues rarely stay in one lane.

So we look across the business together, find what is actually wrong, and tell you what to fix first and in what order. Then the one or two of us it belongs to do the work.

We're not consultants who hand you recommendations and a deck.

Why we exist

We kept turning up inside the same companies, working what looked like separate problems. They were rarely separate.

We already work together, so nothing falls into the gaps between us. That is usually where the expensive problems live.

The five firms

Five owners. Five lanes. One phone call.

Every one of us runs the firm we're describing. No account managers, no handoffs to a junior team.

Planning & operations
TN
Tyler Nielsen
Founder, VAST Insight Partners

Working capital back out of inventory for mid-market manufacturers, by getting the forecast, the P&L, and the floor onto one plan.

LinkedIn
Sourcing & purchasing
JB
Jim Boldrey
CEO & Founder, Maverick

Cost savings for mid-market manufacturers through smarter sourcing, supplier negotiation, and nearshoring.

LinkedIn
IT & data
SS
Sarit Singhal
SSR Total IT

IT infrastructure and cybersecurity, plus OpEX Betterment, a BI platform that puts quote to cash on one screen.

LinkedIn
Frontline workforce
MW
Mike White
Secchi

Real-time performance management for frontline leaders. Coaching, recognition, and attendance in two clicks instead of ten steps.

LinkedIn
Shipping & logistics
TM
Tyler Marcus
Unishippers 1792

Simplify logistics with better rates, smarter tracking, and white-glove customer support from quote to delivery.

LinkedIn
Proof Pending client clearance

Two recent examples

TN
Tyler Nielsen
VAST Insight Partners

Wisconsin manufacturer

What was broken
Missing ship dates while sitting on months of extra inventory. Out of hundreds of products, only a handful were predictable enough to forecast.
What we did
Re-planned around product families instead of individual items, and moved the buffer stock to the shared components underneath.
Where it landed
The plan now matches how customers actually buy, and the gap between the dates we promise and the dates customers ask for is closing.
JB
Jim Boldrey
Maverick Sourcing & Procurement

Madison metals fabricator

What was broken
Leadership knew there was savings in their $20M+ annual spend but had no internal bandwidth to go after it. Purchasing was busy keeping production running, so suppliers and costs had gone unchallenged for years.
What we did
Analyzed the spend, identified the categories with the most opportunity, went to market and built competitive pressure against the incumbents.
Annual spend addressed
Total annual spend$20M+
Taken out, annualized$1.8M
$1.8MHard cost savings, annualized, inside an eight-month engagement. Roughly 9% off a spend nobody had challenged in years.

Fixing the planning at the first one surfaced a systems gap and a floor-scheduling strain. That is the pattern. Fix one thing and two more surface behind it. It is why there are five of us.

By invitation

Dinner at Hinterland

The night before Manufacturing First, a short walk from the Expo. An evening with people who run manufacturing companies, while there is still room to actually talk.

HINTERLAND
Hinterland Brewery
1001 Lombardi Ave · Titletown District · Green Bay
TITLETOWN DISTRICT · GREEN BAY LOMBARDI AVE Hinterland 1001 LOMBARDI AVE LAMBEAU FIELD Resch Expo MANUFACTURING FIRST SHORT WALK SCHEMATIC · NOT TO SCALE
Date
Tuesday, October 27, 2026Manufacturing First is Wednesday the 28th at Resch Expo
Time
Reception 5:30, buffet at 6:00Runs until about 9:00
Where
Hinterland Brewery1001 Lombardi Ave, Titletown District, Green Bay
Format
Buffet, cocktails, and beerNo presentation, no deck. Wednesday has a full day of both.
Who
About fifty people who run manufacturing companiesTopic tables, so you can sit where your problem is
Cost
On us.

Reserve a seat

Five fields. We'll confirm by email within a day.