SELECTED RESULTS & CASE STUDIES

Complex Problems. Measurable Outcomes.

Selected examples from Ryan S. Howard’s operating career across manufacturing, supplier recovery, procurement, sourcing, and complex program execution.

Discuss a Similar Challenge Explore the Cases

$10M+Implemented savings

30+Delinquent suppliers recovered

15 daysManufacturing lead time removed

$706KUnnecessary expedite cost avoided

BROWSE BY CHALLENGE

Results earned in the work.

Filter the cases by the kind of operating challenge in front of you.

GLOBAL SUPPLY TRANSITION $7M

of production moved in under 90 days

FEATURED CASE

Six factories. Four continents. Zero OEM production stoppages.

Situation: A high-risk supply transition required highly engineered production to move across a global factory network on an accelerated timeline.
Work: Integrated sourcing, supplier readiness, engineering, quality, packaging, logistics, factory capacity, and customer timing into one executable transition plan.
Result: Approximately $7 million of production was relocated in under 90 days across six factories and four continents, protecting uninterrupted OEM production.

SUPPLIER DUE DILIGENCE & RISK1,000+

A global supplier-risk decision system used more than 1,000 times.

Situation: John Deere needed one evidence-based way to make go/no-go decisions on every new supplier and new supplier location—and to diagnose operating risk at existing suppliers.
Work: Ryan helped develop the Order Fulfillment and Risk Assessment as part of a team, personally trained the global practitioner community across North America, South America, Europe, and Asia, and later led a team that redesigned it. The assessment examined the full operating system: capacity and order fulfillment, production planning and scheduling, quality, business continuity, workforce development and turnover, program management, supplier management, commercial alignment and SIOP, leadership cadence, continuous improvement, and strategic planning.
Result: The assessment became mandatory for new suppliers and locations and a diagnostic tool for existing suppliers. It gave sourcing, factories, leadership, and engineering a shared risk rating, gap-closure plan, and go/no-go decision. Every assessment surfaced risks that could have affected production; teams implemented and verified the required mitigations before launch.

ASCENDER PE & M&A ADAPTATION

Operational and supply-chain diligence built for the deal decision.

Ascender expands the proven operating-system assessment into a deeper view of the target’s supplier base, spend, performance, and value-creation potential.

Supplier performance, concentration, and continuity risk
Spend-management maturity and data quality
Cost optimization and spend-compression potential
Decision-ready risk register and mitigation plan
Day-one and first-100-day priorities

Deal-dependent scope. Can be completed within two weeks when the company’s data is ready.

OPERATIONS STABILIZATION15 days

Lead time removed while flexibility increased 25%.

Situation: A $60 million manufacturer needed greater flow, faster response, and a more reliable operating rhythm.
Work: Identified the operating constraints behind excess lead time and aligned the team around changes to flow, scheduling, and execution.
Result: Reduced manufacturing lead time by 15 days while increasing production flexibility by 25%.

SUPPLIER RECOVERY6 years

A chronic supplier problem moved from lowest-rated to partner level.

Situation: A strategic supplier had accumulated six years of delivery, quality, and relationship problems without a sustainable recovery.
Work: Built one cross-functional fact base and recovery plan spanning supplier operations, quality, capacity, planning, engineering, and commercial barriers.
Result: Reversed the chronic performance pattern and moved the supplier from the lowest performance category to partner-level status.

STRATEGIC SOURCING10%

Structural cost reduction across a $55 million portfolio.

Situation: A complex sourcing portfolio required sustainable cost improvement—not a one-time price concession.
Work: Combined cost analysis, category strategy, supplier economics, negotiation, and cross-functional implementation planning.
Result: Delivered 10% structural cost reduction across a $55 million portfolio, contributing to more than $10 million in implemented career savings.

PROGRAM LEADERSHIP$706K

An integrated timeline replaced months of unnecessary airfreight.

Situation: A critical component change was headed toward more than five months of assumed premium freight from a South American supplier.
Work: Integrated supplier, engineering, production, logistics, and factory milestones to expose the true critical path and align decisions.
Result: Avoided approximately $706,000 in unnecessary expedite cost while protecting implementation timing and production continuity.

MANUFACTURING LEADERSHIP130+

A large assembly operation reached its highest product-line quality.

Situation: A high-complexity tractor assembly operation required disciplined daily execution across people, quality, material, equipment, and schedule.
Work: Led the 130+ person operation, strengthened cross-functional ownership, and focused the team on the operating issues affecting flow and quality.
Result: Reached the highest quality level in the product line’s history while reducing AGV-related downtime by 20%.

DELIVERY RECOVERY30+

Delinquent suppliers recovered before backlog became the operating model.

Situation: Late suppliers were disrupting schedules, increasing expediting, and consuming management attention across multiple operating environments.
Work: Worked directly with suppliers and internal teams to separate backlog symptoms from capacity, planning, quality, material, and decision constraints.
Result: Recovered more than 30 delinquent suppliers across Ryan’s operating career and helped restore delivery control.

Results shown are selected examples from Ryan S. Howard’s operating career. Outcomes vary by situation, scope, available data, leadership alignment, and implementation conditions.

WHAT CONNECTS THE CASES

Find the real constraint. Put one plan behind it. Stay through execution.

The situations are different, but the operating pattern is consistent: establish the fact base, quantify the impact, integrate the work across functions, create clear ownership, and drive the cadence until the result is real.

That is the operating approach Ascender Partners brings to focused assessments, recovery projects, critical programs, and fractional leadership engagements.

BRING THE PROBLEM THAT NEEDS MOVEMENT

Let’s determine what a measurable result would look like.

Start with the situation, the impact, and what has already been tried. The first conversation is designed to clarify the real problem and the fastest useful next step.

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