Barb Schultze

Over the last 20 years, Barb has worked extensively with large, global and multinational corporations to improve Supply Chain, Manufacturing, & S&OP processes and performance within the Consumer and Retail industry.  Her experience working in industry as a process engineer and production manager along with her consulting expertise provides clients with results that are pragmatic, actionable, and sustainable.  

Barb has an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management and a Master of Engineering Management from Northwestern University. She also holds a Bachelor of Science in chemical engineering from MIT, where she captained the Women's volleyball team for two years.   

Barb earned her Six Sigma Black Belt and Lean Practitioner from DuPont and is certified in supply chain management by APICS.

Sample Experience includes:

• Identified and implemented labor cost improvements at food manufacturer: developing crewing models and KPIs that drove out ~$900K in labor costs (10% reduction) and reduced material waste by $2.5M, a 5X increase in EBITDA

• Develop and led S&OP process and models for $3B NA household goods company, including updated forecast accuracy. Developed and ran supply meetings: supply/demand balancing, and DOH & inventory targets and strategies

• Led profitability recovery for $100M Personal Care Co-Manufacturer. Developed programs across manufacturing, warehousing, operating model, portfolio optimization, and commercials terms to drive EBITDA from -10% to +5% and reduce inventory holding by 50%

• Conducted SKU rationalization effort for $1B healthy snacks company identifying reduction in 25% of SKU count, most of which were negative margin drivers;  worked with team to identify opportunities for expanded sales distribution for top 35 products to recover sales and backfill options at key retailers