Woodside Quality
Supply Chain Optimization Backed by Right-fit Process Improvement

Most companies—especially on the manufacturing and supply chain fronts— follow the unhealthy practice of trying to throw new software or a new system at problems they come across. They fail to understand the importance of finding the root causes of the problems and instead look for the next great silver bullet in an attempt to avoid the work that goes into mitigating the underlying issues in the right way. Nothing could be further from practicality.

Defining a problem and identifying what’s causing it is essential to work for any business to achieve success in the long run. Moreover, business and operations problems, when thoroughly studied, present opportunities to improve, innovate, and gain a competitive advantage. As such, every organization needs methodologies for surfacing their highest-priority issues, resolving them, and then tracking performance to continually reveal new opportunities for improvement.

This is where Woodside Quality steps in. As its logo suggests, the company provides data-driven methods for gaining key insights into your organization’s performance, equipping leaders to make sound decisions, thus driving exceptional performance and results. Woodside Quality also provides quality performance management, project management, and analytics support to large companies, IT integrators, and federal entities; it prides itself on being a CVE-Certified Service-Disabled Veteran- Owned Small Business. With a team of highly educated and experienced veterans with careers focused on healthcare, manufacturing, defense, finance, information technology, and product development, Woodside Quality supports businesses in their most complex operations.

“Our owner, Rip Stauffer, is a Quality Engineer and Six Sigma Master Black Belt, and I am a third-generation Lean Sensei. Our extensive background allows us to be deeply immersed in the culture of continuous process improvement, process optimization and overall operational excellence. We are more interested in solving problems than in growing our own business, for better or for worse,” explains David Allway, President of Woodside Quality.

In an interview with CIO Applications magazine, Allway shares how Woodside Quality leverages its in-depth industry knowledge to help clients find the root cause of the problems in the supply chain and project improvement and creates solutions accordingly to help organizations overcome those challenges.

Please provide us a quick overview of your company and the process it undertakes in mitigating the challenges in today’s market.

Woodside Quality is a consulting firm comprising a cadre of subject matter experts who specialize in data analytics, process improvement, strategy management, and supply chain management.

Being a system-agnostic company, we help clients in establishing and standardizing their processes and creating tools they need to automate their IT. We enable them to identify past errors and assist them in building their future. Our experts deploy strategic models to help clients understand and facilitate process improvements.

We undertake several methods to resolve issues, but the basic one is always Lean and Six Sigma. For instance, when it comes to supply chain optimization, we dive deeper into the actual science behind an issue and find ways to mitigate it. We closely collaborate with the personnel who work in the global supply chain to map the processes that need attention. The key is to understand the details of the supply chain system and every step involved.

What differentiates Woodside Quality from other market players?

What makes us unique is we do not support hierarchical culture in our business. We are always open to new concepts and innovations coming from every one of our employees. Every week, we do roundtables where everyone is involved and take their opinions for the projects we are working on. We collaborate with people from different sectors like major medical, finance, medical device manufacturing, chemical manufacturing, agriculture, automotive, and industrial equipment manufacturing. We’re all about sharing the depth and breadth of our knowledge and experience. In our company, we have experts who have specializations in different disciplines, including behavioral psychology, organizational development, strategic planning and management, engineering, and statistics.

The other differentiating factor is we listen to our clients and address their problems based on their business requirements. Every organization has its own set of unique problems, and it is important to mold strategies that can alleviate their issues; that are exactly what we do. We don’t claim to have a magic bullet that will solve everyone’s problems. Instead, we help our clients identify the source of their problems and then tailor solutions that are the right fit for them.

Could you share with us a customer success story?

During the COVID-19 pandemic, one of our clients was given the responsibility of providing personal protective equipment like masks, gloves, and other protective gear for doctors and nurses; but was facing issues regarding obtaining and distributing the materials. We played a significant role in helping them remove barriers and streamline their processes. By leveraging predictive analytics, we enabled them to identify where the products should be moved, stored, and held in advance of potential future needs. We helped them maintain a seamless supply chain by reallocating the products from lowneed to high-need areas, placing orders, and backfilling them into the areas that would be next in line to stay ahead of the shortage of resources in the medical centers. We also provided integrated data collection, reporting, and dashboards so they could monitor the flow and inventory of those supplies in nearreal- time.

What does the roadmap look like for Woodside Quality?

We primarily focus on expanding our reach to new prospects while continuing to nurture our relationships with existing customers. We have financially doubled our size in the past two months, and we would like to maintain that growth. Our company prides itself on having a fluid staff by employing veteran subject matter experts for specific projects. It means that they have the flexibility to take their time off when they’re not working. Woodside Quality will continue to maintain such fluidity in its human resources in the upcoming years.

Furthermore, we have recently started projects in the Department of Defense and the Veterans Administration, and we have plans to extend our footprint in the commercial healthcare space as well.