Work
Most of it is quality and operations. Manufacturing is the center of gravity. Family businesses, nonprofits, and legal practices show up when the process is unclear.
Quality systems
Michael works on the unglamorous side of quality: procedures people will use, records that survive an audit, and improvements that don’t vanish after the workshop.
In a shop that often means ISO 9001 or AS9100 as the spine — document control, nonconformances, corrective action, supplier quality, and a management review that isn’t just a calendar invite. Lean and Six Sigma tools sit next to that for mapping work, finding root cause, and cutting waste. Project tools keep launches and capex from living only in email.
The point isn’t a thicker binder. It’s a place that can train someone new, catch defects early, and keep running when the usual person is out.
The quality management standard most shops start with: documented work, audits, corrective action, and a review that isn’t just a calendar hold.
Aerospace quality on top of ISO 9001. Configuration control, risk, counterfeit parts, and the records customers ask for in a regulated supply chain.
Mapping a process, finding the waste and the variation, and fixing the cause instead of running another kickoff.
Scope, dates, risk, and stage gates so a launch or a capex job isn’t living in someone’s inbox.
Work instructions that match what’s on the floor, revision control, and training records you can show an auditor.
A short set of numbers and a meeting cadence that surface problems early — without a dashboard nobody opens.
Where it applies
Related companies, shared people, and the question of who decides what when the founder isn’t in the room.
Family businesses usually have more than one company, and people wearing more than one hat. Michael works on the operating side of that: who owns a decision, how work moves between entities, and what happens when the person who has always held it steps back.
Programs, reporting, and follow-through when the staff is small and the expectations are not.
A nonprofit still has to take work in, deliver it, and report on it. Michael helps put owners and simple standards on that work so the board isn’t running on hope and the staff isn’t inventing the process every week.
Quality on the floor — ISO, aerospace, document control, and the routines that survive a bad day on the line.
This is where most of the quality work lives. ISO 9001, AS9100, nonconformances, training records, supplier quality. If the system only works when everyone is paying attention, it doesn’t work.
Intake, files, and follow-through so a matter doesn’t live only in one person’s head.
A practice has the same operational problems as any other shop: how work comes in, who has the next step, and how documents stay under control. Michael works on that without turning lawyers into a production line.
A quality gap, a messy process, or something that’s been sitting on one person’s desk. Send a note.
