Anatomy of a $20M Assessment: What a Supply Chain Review Should Actually Cover

A supply chain assessment should end with a ranked list of opportunities, each one sized in dollars and tied to a specific fix. I run Cameo Consulting, and one of the clearest examples from my own work is a 6-week review of a $400M+ automotive aftermarket supplier. That assessment identified roughly $20M in improvement opportunities. This article walks through what a review like that covers, area by area: the data I request, how I size each number, and what the final readout contains. If you are deciding whether to commission one, here is what to expect.

What does a supply chain assessment actually cover?

A full assessment covers five areas: freight and transportation, network and footprint, inventory and planning, procurement, and data readiness. Skipping any one of them leaves money uncounted, because the areas trade off against each other. Cheaper freight can mean more inventory. A leaner network can mean longer transit times and unhappy customers.

The structure is simple. Weeks 1 and 2 are data collection and interviews. Weeks 3 and 4 are analysis. Weeks 5 and 6 are sizing, validation with the people who own the numbers, and the readout. In the aftermarket case, that meant interviews across planning, purchasing, operations, and logistics up front, then heads-down work in the data.

One principle runs through all of it: work from the company's raw data, not management's summary of it. Estimates are context, not evidence.

What data does the assessment request?

The data request goes out before the kickoff call, because data access sets the pace of everything else. A typical list:

• 12 months of freight invoices at the shipment level: origin, destination, weight, mode, carrier, and cost
• Carrier contracts, rate schedules, and the parcel agreement
• The item master, plus 12 months of month-end inventory snapshots by SKU and location
• 24 months of sales history and the forecasts that preceded it, so forecast accuracy can be measured
• Purchase order history and a supplier list with annual spend and payment terms
• An inventory of every system, and every spreadsheet, the team relies on to run the week

None of this is exotic. Any mid-market company should be able to produce it in 1 to 2 weeks. When a company cannot, that is a finding in itself, and it lands in the data readiness section of the report.

What should the freight and transportation review cover?

Freight is usually where the fastest money sits, so it gets the deepest cut. I rebuild the year of shipments into one dataset and benchmark every meaningful lane against current market rates. Typical findings: lanes priced 10 to 20 percent above market because nobody has bid them in years, less-than-truckload shipments that could consolidate into full truckloads, parcel volume moving at the wrong service level, and accessorial charges that nobody audits.

The output is not "freight seems high." It is a lane-by-lane table showing spend, the market benchmark, and the gap, with the largest gaps ranked first. In the $400M+ aftermarket assessment, technology and logistics capabilities made up one of the four areas reviewed, and transportation opportunities were a meaningful share of the $20M identified.

What does the network review look at?

Six weeks is not enough time for a full network optimization study, and a good assessment does not pretend otherwise. What it can do is test the network against demand. Where do orders ship from, and where do customers actually sit? Is the same SKU stocked in 3 places when 1 would do? Did an acquisition add a warehouse that nobody ever rationalized?

If the math suggests real money, the assessment sizes it roughly, states the assumptions, and recommends a proper modeling study as a follow-on. A rough number with honest assumptions beats a precise number built on guesses.

What should the inventory and planning review find?

This is where growth quietly outruns process. The aftermarket supplier had grown well, but its planning practices had not kept pace, a pattern I see in most companies between $100M and $1B. The review asks blunt questions. Is forecast accuracy measured at all? Does a sales and operations planning meeting happen monthly, with decisions, or is it a status call? Are safety stocks set by formula or by habit? How much inventory is slow-moving or dead?

The answers convert directly into working capital. Inventory bought against a forecast nobody measures is cash sitting on shelves. In the aftermarket case, working capital was one of the largest buckets in the $20M, sized from the company's own SKU-level inventory and demand history.

How do you assess procurement in six weeks?

You build a spend cube: what the company buys, from whom, at what price, on what terms. Even a basic one surfaces the classics. The same part purchased at 2 different prices from 2 suppliers. Half the spend concentrated with vendors whose contracts expired years ago. Payment terms 15 days shorter than industry norm. A tail of 300 small suppliers no one manages.

The assessment does not renegotiate anything in 6 weeks. It quantifies the gap, names the categories worth bidding, and estimates what a structured sourcing effort should return in each one.

Why does data readiness belong in a supply chain assessment?

Because the other four areas only stay fixed if the company can see the numbers every month. The data readiness review asks one question: can this team track cost per shipment, forecast accuracy, and inventory turns without a 3-day spreadsheet exercise? If the answer is no, every savings number in the report has a shelf life.

This section maps the systems, the reporting gaps, and the tribal-knowledge spreadsheets that one person maintains and nobody else understands. It is the least glamorous part of the review and the part that decides whether the money stays found. It is also where the follow-on work usually starts: reporting people trust, then tools that hold the gains.

How do opportunities get sized without inflating them?

An assessment lives or dies on whether its numbers survive contact with reality, so I size conservatively and show the work. Five rules:

1. Use the client's own data. Industry averages inform; they never justify a dollar figure.
2. Benchmark to attainable, not best-case. If lanes run 15 percent over market, the sized opportunity might be 8 to 10 percent after service and mix constraints.
3. Count each dollar once. Freight consolidation and network redesign can claim the same savings. Pick one.
4. Show a range and lead with the low end. The headline number should be the one you would defend in a board meeting.
5. Say identified, not delivered. Nothing is delivered until it shows up in the P&L. The $20M in the aftermarket case was identified; capturing it was the company's next chapter, with a plan attached.

What does the final readout contain?

Four things. First, a one-page ranked list of every opportunity, plotted by value and effort. Second, one page per opportunity: the finding, the evidence behind it, the dollar size and its assumptions, the specific fix, a suggested owner, and a timeline. Third, a 90-day starting plan. Fourth, a data appendix so the client's team can reproduce every number.

Equally important is what happens before the final version. I review the draft with management first, so nothing in the readout arrives as a surprise. In the aftermarket engagement, company leadership pressure-tested the findings before anything was final. Surprises make headlines; validated findings make budgets.

How should you act on the findings?

Do not launch 12 initiatives. Pick 2 or 3, give each a single owner, and build the tracking before the work starts, so progress is visible monthly. Sequence matters: quick wins like a freight bid can land in 90 days and fund the slower structural work, like a planning process rebuild that takes 2 to 3 quarters. And time the readout to your calendar. The aftermarket assessment finished in time to feed the company's next planning cycle, which is exactly when a ranked list of sized opportunities is worth the most.