Strategy, operational excellence and transformation for family businesses and industrial mid-sized companies – built with the people who will carry it out.
Most mandates combine two of them. We staff each team for the problem in front of us – not for whoever happens to be free.
Where the company should be in five to ten years – worked out with the shareholders, not around them.
Stable processes in production, logistics and purchasing. Measurably better, without overloading the organisation.
Large changes over several years: consolidating sites, a new ERP, integration after an acquisition.
The transformation check covers strategy, processes, data and organisation. At the end you see your maturity profile against the mid-market and three recommendations on where to start.
Maturity by dimension, scale 1 to 5. Comparison: median from checks of mid-sized industrial companies (invented for this example).
| Dimension | Your score | Your profile | Median |
|---|---|---|---|
| Strategy | – | 3.1 | |
| Processes | – | 2.9 | |
| Data | – | 2.3 | |
| Organisation | – | 2.7 |
Example evaluation: the rules are simplified, nothing is stored or sent.
1 = not at all, 5 = completely
Kessler Advisory works with family businesses and industrial mid-sized companies on strategy, operational excellence and transformation. We build plans with the people who will carry them out – and judge ourselves by the numbers that follow.
Most companies we work with don’t lack insight. They know where things are stuck. What they lack is time, a clear sequence and someone who keeps going once day-to-day business takes over again. That is our job.
At least half of our project time is spent where value is created: on the line, in the warehouse, with sales.
Whoever signs the proposal works on the project – every week, not only for the final presentation.
We agree measurable targets and tie part of our fee to them.
By the end, your team runs the method itself. Follow-on work is not a number we manage by.
Three recent mandates. The clients are anonymised; the numbers are the ones we were measured against.
+13
points of equipment effectiveness, from 58 to 71 percent
Injection moulding for automotive and medical technology, three plants in Bavaria and Upper Austria
Growing delivery backlogs, although the machines seemed fully loaded. Overall equipment effectiveness of 58 percent, long changeovers and breakdowns nobody tracked systematically.
Daily shop floor management on all 42 machines, changeover reduction on the twelve most frequently set-up presses, a simple downtime log on a tablet. The supervisors wrote the standards themselves.
OEE up from 58 to 71 percent, changeovers 38 percent shorter, on-time delivery up from 81 to 94 percent. The capacity gained replaced a planned investment of around €2.4 million.
Measured as the average of three months before the project and six months after completion.
−14%
cost per order line
| Jan 2024 | 100 |
|---|---|
| Feb 2024 | 101 |
| Mar 2024 | 99 |
| Apr 2024 | 100 |
| May 2024 | 98 |
| Jun 2024 | 97 |
| Jul 2024 | 95 |
| Aug 2024 | 96 |
| Sept 2024 | 93 |
| Oct 2024 | 92 |
| Nov 2024 | 91 |
| Dec 2024 | 90 |
| Jan 2025 | 89 |
| Feb 2025 | 89 |
| Mar 2025 | 88 |
| Apr 2025 | 87 |
| May 2025 | 86 |
| Jun 2025 | 86 |
9 → 6 sites, one system instead of three−22% warehouse space+19% picking productivity
Warehousing and distribution for industry and retail, sites in Germany and Austria
After two acquisitions, nine sites were running three warehouse management systems and their own processes. Cost per order line was clearly above market, and large customers were demanding price cuts.
A shared target picture for the network, standard core processes, consolidation to six sites and migration to one system in four waves. The works council sat on the steering committee from week one.
Cost per order line down 14 percent, warehouse space down 22 percent, picking productivity up 19 percent. No redundancies.
21%
service share of revenue, previously 9 percent
Special-purpose machinery for the food industry, third-generation owned
Revenue had been flat at around €40 million for five years, with 38 percent from a single customer. Succession was open and the shareholders disagreed on direction.
A strategy process with all six shareholders, an analysis of the installed base of around 1,900 machines and a dedicated service business built from scratch. In parallel, an advisory board and a succession plan.
Service share of revenue up from 9 to 21 percent, largest customer down from 38 to 24 percent. Succession is settled; the advisory board has met quarterly since 2023.
| New machines | Service and spare parts | Service share | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 37.3 | 3.7 | 9 % |
| 2022 | 37.6 | 4.7 | 11 % |
| 2023 | 37.4 | 6.1 | 14 % |
| 2024 | 37.0 | 8.1 | 18 % |
| 2025 | 37.1 | 9.9 | 21 % |
Financial years 2021 to 2025, company figures.
What we learn on projects, we write down. No sign-up, no white paper form.
Many plants invest in software before they have a stable meeting routine. The order matters.
Markus Hollerer
Almost every plant we get to know has metrics. What is missing is the moment when someone looks at them and makes a decision. Fifteen minutes each morning, in the same place, around the same three numbers, is unspectacular – and more effective than most digitalisation projects.
We describe how such a meeting is set up, the mistakes we see most often and why the supervisors matter more than plant management.
On a real site, each article has its own page, with author details and structured data for search engines.
Whoever takes over also takes on a direction. Why shareholders should settle the strategy before they talk about names.
Dr. Katharina Kessler
Succession is often treated as a people question: someone from the family or from outside, and when. Yet the real decision comes earlier – which company is being handed over, and whether it suits the people meant to run it.
Using three anonymised cases, we show how shareholders with different interests arrive at a shared direction.
On a real site, each article has its own page, with author details and structured data for search engines.
Data projects in mid-sized companies rarely fail on technology. They fail on the question of who owns a metric.
Lena Aigner
When three departments report three different on-time delivery rates, a new platform won’t help. A definition will, along with one owner and the agreement that only this number counts.
The article lays out a four-step process we have tested on several projects, and what it costs: mostly management time.
On a real site, each article has its own page, with author details and structured data for search engines.
35 consultants, 14 of whom have held management roles in industry: plant managers, heads of logistics, finance directors. We deliberately hire people who have been responsible for results, not just for presentations.
Every mandate is led personally by a partner. Teams are small, decisions are quick, and whoever starts a project stays until the end.
Dr. Katharina Kessler
Founder, Managing Partner, Munich
Strategy, family businesses, governance
Markus Hollerer
Partner, Vienna
Operational excellence, plastics and metal
Lena Aigner
Partner, Vienna
Data and performance management, controlling
Thomas Wendler
Partner, Munich
Logistics and supply chain
Sabine Rautner
Partner, Munich
Transformation, post-merger integration
Dr. Florian Brandstetter
Partner, Vienna
Machinery and plant engineering, service
Head office, 20 consultants. A five-minute walk from the central station.
15 consultants, covering Austria, South Tyrol and Eastern Europe.
The two offices are four hours apart by train. Most of the time we are at our clients’ sites anyway.
A first conversation takes about an hour, costs nothing and commits you to nothing. Afterwards you’ll know whether and how we can help – or who you should ask instead.
Markus Hollerer will get back to you within two working days with possible dates.
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