Your warehouse is the heart of your supply chain. It shouldn’t be a cost center; it should be a strategic asset that drives growth and customer satisfaction. Supply Velocity offers expert warehouse consulting services designed to transform your operations, optimize workflow, and deliver a significant return on investment.

As a hands-on warehouse consultant team with decades of experience, we consult closely with your leaders to evaluate current processes, integrate best practice methods, and maximize efficiency and productivity across material handling, inventory management, and fulfillment.

Proven expertise in optimizing warehouse operations for industry leaders

A Berkshire Hathaway Company

The Impact: Your Warehouse, Optimized

We are a results-driven warehouse consulting firm. Our hands-on approach to warehouse operations consulting delivers measurable improvements in efficiency, accuracy, and cost-effectiveness.

  • 55% Increase in Labor Productivity  By redesigning a warehouse layout and warehouse design based on operational data and implementing Lean optimization principles, we helped a client dramatically improve their workflow and achieve a massive boost in labor productivity.
  • Improved Order Fill Rate from 88% to 98.5%  For an e-commerce distributor, we optimized inventory management and picking processes, increasing their fill rate to world-class levels while supporting a 200% increase in order volume.
  • $450,000 in Obsolete Inventory Eliminated  Through a disciplined inventory rationalization and 5S process, we enabled a client to remove obsolete SKUs, freeing up over $450,000 in cash and creating valuable warehouse space.
  • 100% Labor Productivity Improvement  When a client expanded into a new facility, our data-driven warehouse design strategy allowed them to achieve double the productivity with the same headcount from day one.

The Modern Warehouse Challenge

Warehouse operations have never been more complex. E-commerce has reshaped customer expectations for faster, more accurate fulfillment. Meanwhile, labor shortages and rising costs create constant pressure to do more with less.

Without a clear strategy, it’s easy for operations to be hampered by common challenges like inefficient travel paths, poor space utilization, forklift congestion, and inaccurate inventory management that leads to stockouts or costly excess.

Material handling choices and warehouse automation (for example, automating cycle counts or label printing) must be integrated carefully with your WMS to avoid bottlenecks.

Our team of experienced warehouse consultants helps you overcome these hurdles. We implement best practice solutions to improve every facet of your warehouse management and operations, from workflow design to automation and safety.

Our Data-Driven Warehouse Consulting Approach

Sustainable optimization is built on data and collaboration. Our proven “Assess, Facilitate, Implement” methodology ensures we deliver solutions that are not only effective but are also embraced by your team for long-term success.

  • Phase 1: Assess  We begin with a deep dive into your current state. Our consultants are on-site, using tools like time studies, process flow mapping, and spaghetti diagrams to quantify inefficiency and identify the root causes of your challenges. We evaluate every aspect of your operation, from receiving to shipping, including material handling equipment, forklift routes, and warehouse automation readiness.
  • Phase 2: Facilitate  This is where change begins. We consult side-by-side with your team to analyze the data and co-design the future state. Whether creating a new warehouse layout or re-engineering a core workflow, we guide your people through the process, building consensus and empowering them with Lean principles. Where appropriate, we integrate automation to automate repetitive tasks and reduce errors.
  • Phase 3: Implement  A plan is only valuable when executed flawlessly. We provide project management to bring the new design to life. We help manage the transition, train your staff, and establish KPIs to measure success and drive a culture of continuous improvement.

Our Warehouse Consulting Services

Our consulting services are focused on the highest-impact areas of your warehouse or distribution center. We tailor our approach to your specific needs, whether you’re building a new facility or seeking to optimize an existing one.

Warehouse & Plant Operations Assessment

Our comprehensive assessment is the first step toward transformation. This diagnostic provides a complete picture of your operational health by analyzing labor productivity, space utilization, inventory, and safety. We evaluate and benchmark performance, then deliver a data-backed roadmap with prioritized recommendations for a clear path to improved efficiency.

Facility Layout

An intelligent warehouse layout is the foundation of an efficient operation. Using data on SKU velocity and order profiles, we design facility layouts and warehouse design standards that minimize travel time and improve the overall flow of people and products. We focus on optimizing every zone – from receiving to packing – to create a seamless and productive workflow for material handling and forklift traffic.

LEAN Warehousing—Warehouse Optimization

Go beyond basic organization and embed a culture of continuous improvement. Our LEAN Warehousing consulting services focus on systematically eliminating waste from your processes. We implement 5S, map value streams, and optimize workflow steps to remove non-value-added activities, driving superior warehouse optimization.

Ecommerce Fulfillment

Direct-to-consumer fulfillment presents unique challenges. We specialize in designing processes for high-volume, small-order environments. We help you improve picking strategies, enhance inventory accuracy, and design efficient packing stations to increase throughput and meet the demanding expectations of online shoppers.

Success Stories: Real-World Warehouse Transformation

The Client: Grand Rock Exhaust Systems

The Challenge: Rapid growth had overwhelmed their warehouse, leading to inefficient operations and excess raw material inventory.

Our Solution: We conducted a Lean Assessment and used spaghetti diagrams and time studies to design a new, optimized warehouse layout, complemented by 5S training and inventory rationalization.

The Impact: The new processes resulted in a 55% increase in overall warehouse labor productivity and the elimination of $450,000 in obsolete inventory.

The Client: Crescent Parts & Equipment

The Challenge: The HVAC distributor needed a strategic layout for a new, larger facility that would maximize efficiency from day one.

Our Solution: We performed a detailed SKU velocity analysis to design a warehouse that placed the fastest-moving items in the most accessible locations, streamlining the picking process.

The Impact: The new branch achieved a 100% labor productivity improvement, handling twice the volume with the same headcount, thanks to the data-driven layout.

The Client: Tacony Corporation

The Challenge: The e-commerce seller was struggling with fulfillment, operating at an 88% fill rate while facing a 200% increase in order volume.

Our Solution: We implemented a multi-criteria inventory classification system and redesigned their picking process and warehouse layout to align with e-commerce best practices.

The Impact: Tacony’s fill rate improved to 98.5%, inventory accuracy increased, and they successfully managed the massive growth with 10% fewer warehouse employees.

“We used Supply Velocity to learn about warehouse optimization…”

“We used Supply Velocity to learn about warehouse optimization. One of the key characteristics of Supply Velocity is that they listened to our requirements and our future sales growth as objectives. We learned how to analyze warehouse processes using lean tools and our future sales growth as objectives.” — HARIS TOCALIC, PRESIDENT, GRAND ROCK, INC.

Ready to Unlock Your Warehouse’s Potential?

Stop letting inefficiency dictate your bottom line. Let’s build a warehouse operation that fuels your growth. Contact our team for a no-obligation discussion about how our warehouse operations consulting can help you achieve your goals.

Ask us your Lean, Six Sigma, or Supply Chain question.

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“For several years we have worked with Supply Velocity to support us with their expertise on Lean Operations and Supply Chain Management. Supply Velocity has helped us implement Lean, improve our inventory systems, and educate our people. They are professionals who are always available to help us as needed.”
Lorenza Pasetti, CEO, Volpi Foods
“Supply Velocity has provided the technical expertise and political capital to move our project forward. They have just the right amount of push and the right amount of support. Supply Velocity has helped us make real changes to improve efficiencies in logistics without jeopardizing our performance. We’re happy and our customers are happy.”
David Walters, President, Hy-C
“Closure Medical recently completed a major reorganization in order to enhance our ability to rapidly create innovative medical devices. We hired Supply Velocity to help us map out the process and service flows of the new organization that would maximize our product development process (PDP). In four weeks, Supply Velocity helped us envision a new PDP structure, develop measures and accountability for each step, and gain consensus within the organization. Supply Velocity’s focus on speed and accountability helped us complete a critical project in a timely fashion.”
Gabe Szabo, Vice President, Product Development, Closure Medical – A Division of Johnson & Johnson
“We engaged with Supply Velocity to help us embed process improvement at all levels of the business. Our team learned from Mitch to let the data drive decisions, to use Lean tools to help us see our processes critically and objectively, and to create a control plan to manage all of the tasks that were the outcome of the data study.

The project turned out to be very significant to the company and most importantly, our customers. We reduced our customer wait times by 40%, and cut in half the labor cost to fulfill customer orders.

Some results are not able to be measured. However, as a result of this project, we have started to build a Lean mindset and culture, which is part of our strategic mission to save our customers money. Supply Velocity has been a valued partner in this mission.”

Dionne Dumitru, COO, Weekends Only

“Your process encourages this group to work together, better communicate and have fun doing it.”

George Edinger, President, C&R Mechanical

“In a time of volatile supply chain disruption, Supply Velocity is helping us develop Demand and Supply Planning processes to proactively tackle these new challenges. They are genuine partners, working with our team, facilitating and teaching.”

Jane Thrasher, Vice President of Supply Chain, Horizon Hobby
“In thirty years of hiring consultants, Supply Velocity, Inc. was the first to tell me what they were going to do, set a price they stuck to and substantially exceed my expectations. I have recommended them to friends and acquaintances. They were true partners in assisting with the turnaround of an acquisition we had been struggling with for two years.

Their math-based technology, solid down-to-earth facilitation skills, and positive, patient and enthusiastic attitude combined to make our implementation of Lean a very rewarding experience.

We increased our production by 50% in the first month of implementation and continue to see improvements. Improvements have not only been realized in productivity, but also in quality and morale. We have increased profitability by $2M on flat sales of $10M.

Based on Supply Velocity, Inc.’s integrity and our results, I will continue to refer them to others and utilize them in the future as we expand our company through acquisitions.”

Bill Gilbert, President, Fusion Coatings
“Many thanks to all three Supply Velocity presenters. I think you guys took a very difficult time for learning and capitalized on everyone’s time and training needs. I truly hope this helps your business as this was a considerable undertaking on the part of Supply Velocity. Outstanding!!”
Mark Holdinghausen, VP of Operations, DEMA Engineering
“Supply Velocity is driving instrumental change in our inventory management processes. This is critical for us to be competitive in a supply chain environment with numerous disruptions. They are making change happen, which can be challenging in a 182 year old organization.”
Jim Carroll, Executive Vice President Operations, Schaeffer Manufacturing

“Supply Velocity created visibility within our Assurance Services Group… visibility of performance, Client-service, employee satisfaction and processing time. Using the Supply Velocity System, Audit Report Cycle time is down over 50%. We are using his strategies to create greater Client loyalty.”

Fred Kostecki, Partner-In-Charge, Assurance Services, Rubin Brown
“We are using Supply Velocity’s Lean Six Sigma methods to analyze a variety of processes including rationalizing SKUs (stock-keeping-units). By using math to evaluate SKUs we took some of the emotion out of our decisions. We expect significant increases in sales and productivity from reducing poor performing SKUs.”
Mark Kelso, Director of Process Improvement, Save-A-Lot
“C&R was struggling with labor productivity. The construction crews were often missing materials that they needed to do their work. This caused significant idle time. Supply Velocity, Inc. and C&R used value stream mapping and visual management tools to make dramatic improvements in operations. Most importantly, two years later C&R is sustaining and improving on the implementation. C&R’s return on investment was 11:1. C&R had a record year last year in both sales and profits and would not have been able to pull it off without the changes Supply Velocity, Inc. helped us make.”
Tom Kuthe, V.P. Construction Operations, C&R Mechanical
“Isolating a problem, finding short, and long term solutions with measurable results is what was promised and results is what was delivered by Supply Velocity. Upon launch of the Lean Six Sigma Selling System, we knew more about our customers, our products, and were able to create a solid plan to increase sales of our most profitable products. Within months of implementation, our booked sales jumped 60% and our most valued customers were getting direct, active, and calculable attention.”
Mark A. Presker, General Manager, Architectural Millwork of St. Louis
“Mitch Millstein and his team helped guide our shop fabrication division in the re-layout of our custom pipe and steel fabrication facility when we moved into a new building. It is not only the results but how he helped. We were involved in every step. I personally did time studies and was able to see the non-value added steps required to manufacture in our old layout. When we created our new layout, everyone was involved, from the executive team to our direct labor force. With Mitch’s help we increased our throughput by a 3x multiple, while providing more competitive prices to our clients as a result of the efficiency improvements.

This has enabled us to not only make more money but also to expand our commercial reach and serve more, and larger customers. I would recommend Supply Velocity to any company that wants to make improvement in supply chain and operations.”

Geoff Gross, President, Gross Mechanical
“We used Supply Velocity on our Warehouse optimization project. One of the key characteristics of Supply Velocity is that they listened to our requirements and provided a clear path for our Warehouse processes using lean tools and our future sales growth as objectives.”
Haris Tokalic, President, Grand Rock, Inc.
“In 2015 we began working with Dr. Mitch Millstein to optimize our inventory locations supporting e-commerce and in-store inventory needs. From this work we developed a new omni-channel warehousing and inventory plan that entirely redefined our approach to warehousing, inventory management, store distribution and fulfillment. As a result of the analyses by Dr. Millstein we have begun the move to an improved omni-channel design by reassigning MSAs to new warehouses, greater leveraging of in-store inventories to satisfy e-commerce demands, and exploring acquisitions of new warehousing space in strategic locations. We have already seen an improvement of $300,000 from both more efficient shipping strategies due to better inventory management.”
Rob Bowers, Vice President of Strategy, Total Hockey
“Supply Velocity has helped Clean succeed in a number of ways. First, they provided the education that kicked off our Lean Process Improvement journey. They also facilitated a number of large supply chain and process improvement projects including: 1) building quality into our direct-labor productivity incentive program, 2) designing the layout of our garment warehouse, and 3) streamlining our route service process.

We have integrated the methods that Supply Velocity taught us into our management and strategic planning. In the process our quality measurement has improved 22% from 2013 to 2015, we have reduced required annual labor by 2200 hours from the garment facility layout project and we’ve seen 50% decrease in error rate. Obviously the numbers speak for themselves, but just as important, Supply Velocity has been fun to work and have become true partners. They have “taught us how to fish” so our internal teams are able to implement change on their own, with the skills we learned from Supply Velocity. This relationship has been invaluable.”

Jeff Lazaroff, Senior Vice President, Clean Uniform
“The role of the Erie Insurance Marketing Department has been evolving over the past several years – from a support role to a more critical role of driving growth in our organization. Because of our increased workload and desire to prioritize the most critical projects, we hired Supply Velocity to teach us the skills of Lean Six Sigma.

Participants included the Promotions, Market Research and Agency Licensing sections of the Marketing Department.

We learned valuable tools to help us to prioritize based on the voice of the customer.

I firmly believe these skills made a difference in how we work every day. We are moving new projects forward, eliminating or changing ineffective processes, and we are a much stronger department. We continue to use the tools to help us with our highly-complex and time-consuming projects. Supply Velocity helped us to accomplish our goals.”

Karen Rugare, Director of Marketing, Erie Insurance

“I am thrilled to provide this testimonial for Supply Velocity and their outstanding work in implementing Lean Warehouses and processes at Crescent Parts & Equipment through the COVID pandemic. With their data-first focus and Mitch’s exceptional coaching and experience, they transformed our business into a more supply chain-oriented organization, enabling us to grow while prioritizing employee safety and creating a better work environment. Supply Velocity’s expertise in Lean methodologies and their comprehensive evaluation of our customers have been instrumental in optimizing our operations and increasing customer satisfaction. We highly recommend Supply Velocity to any company seeking to implement Lean processes and enhance their supply chain efficiency.”

Josh Cole, Director of Supply Chain, Crescent Parts & Equipment

“Supply Velocity gave us the tools to analyze our business and processes based on the facts and numbers versus our perceptions. Our common quote was “Let the numbers lead us”. The key for our organization was how quickly we moved from classroom to actual project initiation. We were able to jump in, start using the tools and see a difference right away.

The get-into-action approach was good for our culture.”

Ned Lane, President, CeeKay Supply
“In the spring of 2003, the St. Louis Area Chapter of the American Red Cross engaged Supply Velocity, Inc. to perform a study and make recommendations to streamline office processes, maximize cash flow in purchasing and warehousing and restructure and enhance our maintenance department. Supply Velocity, Inc.’s process was methodical, flexible, staff-oriented, inclusive and, above all, trackable.

In the last six months, our Chapter has realized expense savings of over $380,000 annually, and significant improvement in intra-company service levels has been attained. Supply Velocity, Inc. will return to the Chapter periodically throughout the next 18 months to audit our newly implemented processes. We have been pleased with our results and Supply Velocity, Inc.’s professionalism.”

Joe White, CEO, American Red Cross – Saint Louis Chapter
“We used Supply Velocity to rethink our sales process. By analyzing the entire process we found wasted time in our Sales, Admin and Operations departments. Streamlining this process created extra time for each Sales Rep, allowing them to spend more time with Customers and increase the value we add. Gross profit margins are up 40%!

We are now using Supply Velocity to help us rethink our entire Strategic Plan.”

Jeff Reitz, Vice President, Central States Bus
“Supply Velocity’s Lean Six Sigma System has given us new tools to help improve our sales performance. We have learned new ways to analyze our business which makes problem solving more accurate and has made us better leaders.”
Rachel Andreasson, Executive Vice President – Marketing, Wallis Companies
“Myerson engaged Supply Velocity, specifically Ray Davis to visit our plant in Trinidad to conduct a two day assessment of our production procedures and provide us feedback on areas for improvement and where applicable, areas for future analysis.

Put simply, we got everything we paid for and in addition to more in depth analysis, we got specific tasks that were immediately actionable. Our local management team found Ray to be engaging, highly credible and insightful based on his wide experience. In other words the cultural differences and lack of specific industry knowledge weren’t impediments to things we could implement immediately and on our own. In a nutshell it was money well spent and will pay itself back many times over.”

Lee Hartwell CPA, Plant Manager, Myerson Tooth
“Our experience with Supply Velocity was one of the best values we have ever had from a consulting project. Cyril Narishkin brought a structured lean methodology, invaluable experience and engaging facilitation skills to help us streamline a very complex and disjointed sales order process. Just as importantly, our team now has the knowledge and process competencies to address other business improvement opportunities going forward.”
Mike Howard, CEO, Aspeq
“We are pleased that Essex selected Supply Velocity, Inc. as our Lean Implementation Partner. At one facility, we have saved over $350,000 in work-in-process inventory, reduced throughput time from 2 weeks to minutes and increased inventory turns 3 to 8 times per year. All these results are in just 6 months. Our return of investment is very high.”
Terry Etter, Vice President of Operations , Essex Medical Systems
“Anheuser-Busch Precision Printing had been implementing Lean Operations on our own for the past two years. We needed to move faster and partnered with Supply Velocity, Inc. Through Supply Velocity, Inc.’s mathematical workflow balancing and visual management tools, dramatic improvements were achieved. The entire converting operation was rearranged based on Lean principles. The result is a 20.6% productivity improvement, enabling us to operate with 23 fewer people in production.”
Rich Lavosky, General Manager, Anheuser-Busch Precision Printing