Operations consulting · Problems we solve

We’re busy, but margins keep slipping.

The teams are full and revenue is up, yet jobs close below the margin you quoted. Cost programs help for a quarter, then fade.

Book a 30-minute conversation How we fix it
What usually gets tried

Why the usual fixes don’t hold

Cutting costs across the board

Cuts land on whatever is easiest to cut, often the work that protects margin. The leak is somewhere else.

Raising prices

It helps until a competitor quotes lower. The unpriced work is still unpriced.

Pushing the estimators

They’re working from the same template. The template is what’s missing the work.

The margin leaks in work nobody priced.

Changes, integration, testing, and rework that never made it into the quote show up only at closeout. By then the next deal has been priced the same way. Comparing what was quoted, what was planned, and what was actually spent shows exactly where the margin goes.

How we fix it

We compare quoted, planned, and actual, job by job.

Step 1

Line up the numbers

For recent jobs: hours quoted, hours planned, and hours actually spent, by kind of work.

Step 2

Find the unpriced work

Which kinds of work are almost never in the quote, and what they cost you in a year.

Step 3

Fix the quote, test it

A deal rule and a quoting change, checked against past jobs before you use it.

What you get

Where the margin goes, job by job

4–6
weeks
30–50
hours of your people’s time, in total
Fixed
fee, agreed in a one-page scope before anything starts

We call this Deal Economics.

  • Quoted vs. planned vs. actual effort, by kind of work
  • The work nobody priced, in dollars
  • A deal rule: what to quote, flag, or approve as investment
  • Actual hours feeding the quote template from now on

Want to start smaller? A shorter first look at how quotes are built (2 to 3 weeks, about 8 to 12 hours of your people’s time) shows whether the full analysis is worth it. You decide.

Example

Losing margin at closeout

Illustrative example: composite, synthetic data

A custom equipment manufacturer

Across 22 jobs: 6,200 engineering hours quoted, 9,100 planned, and 14,800 actually spent. Three kinds of work were almost never in the quote: customer-specific design changes, controls integration, and factory testing and rework. That came to about 8,600 unpriced hours.

What changed: Quotes now line-item the three categories. New design work is flagged and approved as investment. Actual hours feed the quoting template every quarter.

The idea underneath

Every option has a price in money, as well as in hours.

The useful question isn’t what an option saves somewhere, but what it adds to the money coming out of the whole operation, and what it costs to get there. We put every recommendation in those terms, so it holds up in a budget conversation.

How we know: the methods behind the answer

Start with 30 minutes

Tell us where the work gets stuck.

A short, honest conversation. Here’s how the 30 minutes go:

  • 0–5We agree what we’re here for. Either of us can decide it isn’t a fit, and that’s fine.
  • 5–20You tell us what’s going wrong, in your words. Where does work get stuck? Who does everything go through?
  • 20–25We tell you honestly whether we can help, and recommend one step if we can.
  • 25–30You hear exactly what that step would ask of your people and what it costs. Then you decide whether to take it.

Book a 30-minute conversation

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