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Case Study · Contract Manufacturing

$18M of inventory, released.

Data engineering and forecasting for a $300M health and beauty contract manufacturer struggling with OTIF and bloated raw materials inventory.

  • Raw materials inventory released

    –$18M

  • Annual revenue at the asset

    $300M

  • From kickoff to deployed systems

    ~12 wks

The Situation

A $300M manufacturer running blind on inventory and delivery.

A health and beauty contract manufacturer with $300M in annual revenue was carrying $35M in raw materials inventory and missing on-time, in-full (OTIF) commitments to its largest customers. The primary OLTP system bore the full analytical load, leaving leadership without real-time visibility into what could be produced today or which vendors needed to be expedited.

  • Persistent OTIF struggles straining customer and vendor relationships
  • Raw materials inventory exceeded $35M, weighing on working capital and cash flow
  • Primary OLTP system bore the full analytical load, limited real-time visibility
  • Delivery commitments made without data-backed capacity and component availability checks
What We Did

Areté stepped in as interim CFO.

A discovery sprint mapped operational workflows and surveyed the data infrastructure. The output: three core builds, a warehouse to offload analytical work from the OLTP, a real-time readiness dashboard, and a forecasting layer that turned delivery commitments into data-backed promises.

  • 01

    Data warehouse

    Built an OLAP database that offloaded analytical workloads from the primary OLTP system, increasing reporting agility and freeing the transactional system to do its job.

  • 02

    Inventory readiness dashboard

    Real-time view of what could be produced today, what was waiting on which components, and which vendors to expedite. Operators saw the picture, not last month's report.

  • 03

    Promise-date generator

    A data-backed forecasting algorithm producing self-consistent, achievable delivery dates for finished goods. Sales stopped writing checks the floor couldn't cash.

The Outcome

–$18M

Inventory released

Raw materials inventory reduced by approximately $18M, materially improving working capital and cash flow flexibility.

  • Reporting discipline

    Standardized monthly, quarterly, and lender reporting framework, consistent, decision-ready visibility for the board and lenders.

  • Operational coordination

    Cross-functional alignment across procurement, scheduling, and warehouse functions, every operator working from the same picture.

  • Analytical extensibility

    The client continues to extend the pipelines and warehouse to generate new reports, dashboards, and analyses, the capability stayed after we left.