Price is a starting point,
not a conclusion.
A purchasing decision is incomplete until its effects on labor, production, quality, and inventory are understood.
A working thesisStrategy / Operations / Value
Decisions are made separately.Their consequences are not.
Packaging, sourcing, engineering, and operations each see part of the business. The business experiences their decisions together.
Read the thesisJared Spencer / Manufacturing decisionsCommercial judgment. Operating reality.
01 / The thesis
The unit price is visible.
The consequences travel.
A material decision becomes a labor requirement. A specification becomes a supplier constraint. A production sequence becomes an inventory position. What looks like a saving in one function can become a cost in another.
My work begins with those connections: where value is lost, what would change the outcome, and what it takes to capture it.
Three propositions
What follows from this.
Price is a starting point,
The interaction deserves
an owner.
Functional accountability does not automatically create accountability for what happens between functions.
Value identified is not
value captured.
A business case is a hypothesis until the change is implemented and the result is measured against a credible baseline.
02 / Selected writing
Selected
perspectives.
010203
The commercial decision
Review the Specification Before the Next Negotiation
Before changing the supplier, examine the specification that determines what you are buying.
The implementation gap
The Qualification Clock Sets Your Savings Date
A negotiated saving is a possibility. Qualification and implementation determine when it becomes real.
The ownership question
Give the Interaction an Owner
Someone owns each project. Who owns the consequences of running them together?
03 / From thinking to practice
Follow the decision.
Then follow through.
Understand the business pressure. Examine the operating reality. Test the alternatives. Establish who will act, what must change, and how the result will be verified.
A model may be useful. So may a specification review, a supplier conversation, or time spent with the people doing the work. The method should serve the decision.
ObserveQuestionEvaluateImplementVerify
04 / The practitioner
Commercial experience.
Operating perspective.
My work spans packaging supply, strategic sourcing, and operations and engineering consulting. I have built practices, founded a firm, and worked across the boundary between a commercial promise and its operating reality.
I focus on food, beverage, and CPG manufacturing, where material choices, production conditions, and commercial commitments are closely connected.
The Field Journal is my continuing record of that thinking: the mechanisms worth understanding, the assumptions worth questioning, and the evidence that should change a decision.
Professional background & contactThe Field Journal
One question worth
taking into the week.
The weekly LinkedIn newsletter examines a manufacturing decision, the economics behind it, and a practical way to test your own assumptions.