Forged in steel · Versed in regulated environments · Always focused on keeping the working class in America working

Make your operation flow again.

I'm Dan Mindlin. I learned this trade in my youth, bringing systems back to life on steel mill floors where failure wasn't an option — and four decades later I'm still a student of manufacturing. The work is the same at every scale: clean data, integrations that hold, reporting that tells the truth, with AI as the force multiplier. When a fix should outlive the engagement, it becomes Clairvient.

Bring me your problems See the track record

Operations Signal LIVE

Watch Supplier OTIF slipping — 3 POs at risk this week ↗ 4.2d

Flag Item master: 412 duplicate records detected MDM

Clear Month-end reconciliation — 0 open exceptions ✓ GL

// This is what your data looks like when it's working for you.

SYSTEMS I'VE LIVED IN: FOURTH SHIFTSAP S/4HANADYNAMICS F&OINFORSYTELINEORACLEE2NETSUITEEPICORSYSPROPOWER BI

What I'm good at

The problems that don't fit in a support ticket.

Not features. The specific, expensive things that go wrong in a plant when the systems have drifted for a decade and nobody left fully understands them.

01 / DATA

Data you can trust

Item masters, BOMs, supplier and customer records drift over years. I clean them up and keep them clean — so every report and every decision downstream is worth the paper it's on.

02 / VISIBILITY

Reporting that tells the truth

Cost-to-serve, OTIF with root cause, margin by the cut that actually matters to you. Built on your real data — not a vendor's polished demo dataset.

03 / INTEGRATION

Integrations that hold

ERP, MES, PLM, CRM, shop floor, e-invoicing — systems that were never designed to talk to each other, made to talk reliably and stay talking after I'm gone.

04 / JUDGMENT

A straight answer on what's next

Weighing an ERP move or a seven-figure spend? You get an operator's read on the trade-offs — not a reseller's pitch for whatever they're paid to sell.

The journey

Four decades of problems, solved in order.

Every chapter added a discipline. None of them replaced the last one — which is why the work today draws on all of it at once.

Late 1980s – Early 90s

Steel mills — Cleveland, Gary, Pittsburgh

In at nineteen, supporting PC and MicroVAX systems on blast furnace floors. Built reagent performance models that backed pay-per-performance contracts and CAD databases of pneumatic reagent delivery systems. Brought systems back online after twelve hours of abuse and frustrated resets — because the furnace doesn't wait. Everything since carries that standard.

// discipline gained: engineering under consequences

Early – Mid 1990s

Foundry — first network, first ERP

Built a Cleveland foundry's network from nothing and guided them through their first ERP implementation (Symix). Wrote AutoLISP programs that automated drawing generation for heat-treat fixtures — the first time I turned repetitive engineering work into software.

// discipline gained: systems + automation

Mid 1990s – 2000

ERP administrator — spring & tubular manufacturing

Ran systems and Fourth Shift ERP for a precision products manufacturer's Cleveland division. Modernized their reporting, carried them through Y2K without incident, and got my working education in the P&L, the balance sheet, and cost accounting — from inside the system that produces them.

// discipline gained: manufacturing finance

2000 – 2017

Independent — two decades, every corner of manufacturing

Built the first "second skin": a system wrapped around an investment foundry's Fourth Shift that the client used more than the ERP itself — process masters, work instructions with image and video support, years before anyone sold "digital work instructions." Then: MES and timekeeping on Syteline with real-time data collection. Wireless CNC program delivery for a copper components plant. BI for FDA-regulated pharma and Chicago flavor houses. A complete seven-division ERP for a steel mill supplier that has run their business for 23 years and counting. A forge shop MES handling receiving through shipping — still in service, now being rebuilt on a modern web stack.

// discipline gained: range — and the second-skin thesis

2018 – 2026

The executive seat — $200M medical device manufacturer

Two years as VP of Operations: 110 people, a quarter of the company — a team that, given a system worth working in, never missed a single system delivery. Then moved onto the SAP S/4HANA program — master data lead and the PLM-to-SAP integration between their Arena and SAP environments. Ran the operation, then rebuilt the system that runs the operation — so I've seen the work from both chairs. The engagement concluded in 2026 with the work delivered.

// discipline gained: the view from the P&L

2023 – Now

Mindlin Consulting + Clairvient — the AI era

When serious AI arrived, I put it to work immediately — and it changed what one experienced operator can deliver. I've used it to build a full enterprise model — CRM, ERP, QMS, PLM, WMS — with an intelligence layer that ranks alerts by business impact and eases teams into managing the operation with AI. In 2026 I returned to full-time independence to focus here. Twenty-five years of the second-skin pattern, now productized as Clairvient.

// discipline gained: the force multiplier

The operator's seat

I've carried the number, not just reported it.

Most systems consultants have never owned an operation. I was fortunate to lead one — 110 people at a $200M medical device manufacturer, a quarter of the company, inheriting tough facilities and a team that hadn't been set up to succeed. We restructured the work together, moving from one-builder-per-system to an assembly-line flow that made quality a property of the process instead of a burden on the person. The team did the hard part; my job was to give them a system worth working in.

When our flagship RF energy system launched into demand running at double the forecast, that team worked nearly 200 material shortages with engineering and suppliers — creative sourcing, redesigns on the fly — and didn't miss a delivery. That's the pressure your plant lives under. I've lived it too, and I know it's never one person who gets you through it.

ERP is where manufacturing accounting gets made. I've spent thirty years inside the mechanisms that produce the P&L.

So when a number looks wrong, I can usually trace it to the transaction — and work shoulder to shoulder with your accountants and planners, in their language, until it's right. My job is to make your people successful with their systems, not to be the smartest person in the room.

110people led as VP Operations — a quarter of the company

0missed system deliveries — the team's record through a launch at 2× forecast

$68Mannual responsibility — $55M material spend + $13M ops expense

56%operating margin sustained through the turnaround

~200material shortages worked to resolution on one product launch

How it usually goes

Start small. Earn the next step.

I don't ask you to believe a five-year vision before you've seen me fix anything. Each step pays for the next and the proof compounds.

Fix the thing on your desk

We start with the urgent, specific problem — the broken extract, the reconciliation nobody can close, the report you keep asking for. Scoped tight, closed fast.

Make the operation legible

Once the data's trustworthy, we build the visibility that was missing, so the operation reads clearly end to end — and the surprises stop being surprises.

Decide what's next, honestly

With clean data and real reporting, the roadmap conversation finally gets honest. Stay on your stack, modernize, or move — you'll get a straight read from someone who's done all three.

The product arm

Clairvient — the ship in the storm.

Manufacturing runs through weather — demand swings, supply shocks, data drifting quietly out of true. Clairvient is the steady ship: a second skin over your existing ERP that watches the operation continuously, ranks what needs attention by business impact, and eases your team into running the business with AI. I built the first version of this pattern around a foundry's ERP in 2000, and the client used it more than the ERP itself. I've rebuilt it for two and a half decades — foundries, forges, food plants, a seven-division distributor. Clairvient isn't version one of a new idea. It's the current generation of a proven one.

Visit clairvient.com →

Dan Mindlin, Principal of Mindlin Consulting LLC

Who you'd be working with

Forged, not certified.

I'm Dan Mindlin. My education was a blast furnace floor at nineteen, bringing abused systems back online because the mill couldn't wait — and because the people running it were counting on someone to show up. That's been the job ever since: Y2K cutovers, FDA-regulated environments, a product launch at double forecast, a government e-invoicing mandate with a fixed deadline. The pressure changes shape; showing up for the people in it doesn't.

You work directly with the person doing the thinking — but the goal is never to make you dependent on me. I build systems your team can run, document what I learn along the way, and measure success by how well your people do after I've stepped back. Behind me is a small, senior delivery bench and an AI-accelerated build process that lets one experienced operator move like a team, without the overhead or the junior consultant learning on your dime.

— Dan Mindlin, Principal · Mindlin Consulting LLC