From Custom to Scalable

Client Overview

A manufacturing technology company providing production optimization software for discrete manufacturers. With 90 employees and annual revenue of $16M, they struggled with scaling their implementation capabilities to match sales growth.

The Challenge

As the company grew, their implementation approach—largely built around custom deployments for each customer—became increasingly unsustainable. Implementation projects required extensive engineering resources, timelines extended well beyond targets, and scaling the implementation team proportionally with sales would threaten profitability.

Key issues included:

Each implementation requiring extensive customization
Engineering resources diverted from product development
Implementation timelines averaging 5-7 months
Inconsistent quality and outcomes across projects
Limited knowledge transfer between implementations
Customer expectations often misaligned with delivery realities

Our Approach

We implemented our Scalability Engineering program with standardized deployment framework:

Implementation Assessment:
- Conducted comprehensive review of implementation methodology
- Analyzed customization patterns across customer deployments
- Mapped common requirements vs. unique needs
- Evaluated resource utilization and bottlenecks
Standardization Strategy:
- Developed modular implementation framework
- Created standardized configuration options for common requirements
- Designed implementation package options with clear scoping boundaries
- Established resource optimization model
Operational Deployment:
- Implemented deployment automation platform
- Created pre-built integration adapters for common systems
- Developed customer preparation framework
- Built implementation playbooks and knowledge base
Measurement and Optimization:
- Established implementation efficiency metrics
- Created quality assurance methodology
- Implemented continuous improvement process
- Developed capacity planning model

The Results

Within 10 months of implementation, the company achieved:

Implementation time reduced by 52% from average of 6 months to 2.9 months
Implementation capacity increased by 135% without proportional headcount growth
Engineering resource requirements reduced by 48% per implementation
Implementation quality and consistency improved by 64% based on outcome metrics
Customer satisfaction with implementation increased from 7.2 to 8.8 out of 10
Implementation profitability improved by 87%

The implementation transformation enabled the company to effectively scale their customer onboarding operations to match their sales growth, eliminating a critical bottleneck while improving profitability and customer satisfaction.

Download PDF