Plan
Turn priorities into a clear operating plan.
Build budgets and stock targets from actual demand and usage.
USC Consulting Group / Cost & Inventory Control
Cost you can see, control, and reduce.
We make cost and inventory drivers visible in daily management, so reductions are owned on the floor and show up in your financials.
The management operating system
How the eight disciplines apply to cost & inventory control.
Every improvement runs through the same connected cycle. Here is what each discipline looks like in this part of the operation.
Schedule
Make the plan workable day to day.
Time purchasing and replenishment to the operating schedule.
Assign
Make ownership clear.
Make each cost and inventory line the responsibility of a named leader.
Execute
Understand how work actually gets done.
Watch how materials and spend move through the operation day to day.
Follow Up
Keep commitments visible.
Review variances while there is still time to act on them.
Report
Give people a useful view of performance.
Put cost and inventory drivers into daily and weekly reviews.
Analyze
Use evidence to understand what is driving results.
Trace variances back to the decisions and routines that cause them.
Improve
Turn what the team learns into better ways of working.
Lock reductions into standards, min-max levels, and approvals.
How we work
Built with your team, not about it.
Understand before recommending
Work from facts, live examples, and operational evidence
Involve the people who own the process
Build with the client, not about the client
Lead with curiosity, not diagnosis
Treat the review as learning, not auditing
03 / Cost & Inventory Control
Cost you can see, control, and reduce.
We make cost and inventory drivers visible in daily management, so reductions are owned on the floor and show up in your financials.
- The challenge
- Unit costs rise and inventory builds without an obvious cause. Budgets are reviewed monthly, long after the decisions that drove them.
- What USC does
- We link cost drivers to the KPIs supervisors review every day, set inventory policies by item, and build review routines that act on variance quickly.
- What changes
- Cost per unit falls, working capital is released, and finance can validate savings against an agreed baseline.
How we measure progress:
- Cost per unit
- Inventory turns
- Validated recurring savings
Client results
Cost & Inventory Control case studies
Food & Beverage
$19.2Min annualized savings from warehousing and inventory control
Aquafeed producer saves $19.2M a year by taking warehouse operations in-house
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Manufacturing
$1.5Mincrease in annual revenue
Control systems maker adds $1.5M annual revenue, cuts labor cost per job 51%
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Manufacturing
$2Min annual bleach chemical savings at one mill
Pulp and paper maker cuts bleach chemical costs $2M a year at one mill
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Manufacturing
$6Min annualized cost savings
PE firm's manufacturing holding cuts $6M a year and creates $36M in value
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Manufacturing
$500K+in aggregate sourcing savings
Cleaning products maker saves $500K+ by re-sourcing three spend categories
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Logistics
$1.5Min implemented savings from supplier collaboration
Business products distributor saves $1.5M and cuts spend 11% through supplier collaboration
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Aerospace & Defense
$750Kin working capital freed
Utility aircraft maker frees $750K in working capital by resetting supplier terms
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Manufacturing
$14Min savings from better inventory management
HVAC maker saves $14M through inventory management while meeting big-box service terms
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Food & Beverage
$366Min annualized benefits
Global protein company delivers $366M a year across 70 plants
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Automotive
4,200 hoursreduction in engineering backlog, from 12,000
Auto parts maker cuts its engineering backlog 4,200 hours and clears five-day work-in-process stacks
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Energy & Utilities
10%under budget on pipeline integrity construction costs
Gas distributor brings pipeline integrity construction costs in 10% under budget
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Logistics
Repeat client24%reduction in transactional SG&A cost