Engagements
Four ways to put an operator on your floor.
Each engagement is scoped to the constraint you are actually fighting. A fixed-scope diagnostic, an embedded fractional COO, a strategic consultancy aimed at one defined event, or investor-readiness support before a raise. Every path opens with a strategic conversation, not a pitch.
Featured collaboration
QIā¢ Plug-and-Play Electrical Architecture | General Inventions, LLC
An Investor Readiness engagement: the prototype-to-scale operation and investor-diligence case behind a patent-protected hardware system, the same work whether the hardware is a defense sensor or an electrical architecture.
The challenge
The $270B+ U.S. electrical construction industry still runs on century-old, labor-intensive manual wiring, driving project delays, a worsening skilled-labor shortage, and material waste.
The solution
A patent-protected (U.S. 10,326,263 B2) modular, direct-connect electrical system that converts manual wiring into a rapid mechanical plug-and-play assembly, the shift PEX brought to plumbing.
Operational impact
- Velocity8 to 10Ć faster component installation; breaker-panel install projected from 8 to 10 hours to roughly one hour.
- LaborAbout a 50 percent reduction in total jobsite electrical labor.
- MaterialsUp to a 40 percent reduction in copper waste.
Prototype-tested and internally modeled targets. QI is pre-market, with UL certification the primary remaining gate.
Garrett Partridge LLC value add
Architected the commercialization strategy, operational scale-up roadmap, and investor-diligence package that bridge prototype validation to commercial market entry.
The engagements
Pick the depth the situation calls for.
30-Day Operational Triage
The full diagnostic. A defensible written plan in thirty days.
The owner who knows something is eating capacity but cannot name it, and needs a plan they can act on, not another opinion.
Roughly five weeks at twenty hours a week, on-site for the floor work and remote for the analysis. Fixed scope, fixed deliverable.
What you get
- Value stream maps and swim-lane process maps of how work actually moves, top of funnel to cash, including the ECO and CAPA workflows where engineering changes stall
- Gemba walks and targeted Kaizen events on the floor, not from a conference room
- Leading and lagging metric analysis across the four pillars: People and Culture, Process, Products and Services, Cash
- Embedded team training on data governance, pull systems, 5S, and the right use of AI
- A final recommendations report that names the constraint and the sequence to remove it
Fractional COO
Embedded operational leadership without a full-time hire.
The founder who is drowning in operations and cannot justify a quarter-million-dollar COO, but cannot keep running the floor and the board at once.
An ongoing retainer engagement. Near full-time presence in the first 90 days, then a steady fractional cadence as the system holds on its own.
What you get
- Ongoing operational leadership at two to three days a week, embedded with your direct reports
- The full Standard Work 2.0 install across the IT and OT divide, one auditable digital thread from quote to ship
- Real-time SQDIP reporting, quality tracking aligned to your prime's SCAR scorecards, and audit routines that hold the gains after I step back
- Executive mentorship that upskills your internal technicians into site leaders
- A bridge to the prime relationship and its approved supplier list, with the credibility that comes from an operator who has been upstream
Strategic Consultancy
Standard Work 2.0 installed against a specific high-stakes problem.
PE operating partners and leadership teams facing one defined event: forensic diligence on an acquisition, a 90-day P&L triage, or compliance hardening before a prime gate.
Scoped to the event. From a focused, paid, time-boxed working session up to a 30-day stint, structured firm-fixed-price against a defined deliverable.
What you get
- Forensic operational due diligence that surfaces the risk a financial model misses
- A 90-day P&L triage that eliminates production variance and frees trapped working capital
- Compliance hardening for CMMC Level 2, an ITAR data enclave, and a QMS implementation to ISO 9001:2015 or AS9100, built into workflow rather than policy
- The 90-Day Strategy Formulation Framework: Phase 1 Diagnostic, Phase 2 Stabilization, Phase 3 Commercial Scale
- A future-state operating model the team can run after the engagement closes
Investor Readiness
The operational case an investor diligences, built before the first meeting.
The founder of a hard-tech, deep-tech, or defense-hardware company with real technology and a raise ahead, who can show an investor the product but not yet the operation that scales it.
A short, scoped engagement, typically two to four weeks, timed to land before your raise opens. It stands alone, or rolls straight into a fractional COO retainer once the round closes and the plan you showed investors has to be built.
What you get
- A diligence-ready operating picture: value-stream and unit-economics maps that show how the company gets from prototype to repeatable production, and what each unit actually costs to build
- The operational data room a technical investor asks for and most hardware startups cannot produce: the production and scale-up plan, the cost-down curve, the supply and capacity assumptions, and the compliance posture (ITAR, CMMC, AS9100) stated as fact rather than intention
- The operator's answer to the question that sinks hardware raises, can you actually build this at volume, backed by a build plan a technical investor can pressure-test
- An honest readiness read on where the operation would fail diligence today, and the sequence to close each gap before the round opens
- A warm introduction, where the fit is right, into the operators, primes, and capital across the New England defense corridor
Capacity
I run a maximum of four concurrent engagements.
Strategic conversations for a full engagement are scheduled when an existing engagement reaches Phase 3. That is the real constraint, not a marketing line.
If your situation is time-critical, a prime supplier letter, an affirmation date you cannot sign behind, an LOI in diligence, name the trigger when you request the conversation. I respond within 48 hours with a realistic timing window.
Full engagement waitlist
Fractional COO and 30-Day Triage slots open as engagements reach Phase 3. Request the conversation and name your trigger. I respond within 48 hours.
Time-critical? Start with a paid consult, available this week
A paid, time-boxed working session on one defined problem, available without waiting for a full slot to open. If a prime letter, an affirmation you cannot sign behind, or an LOI is forcing your timing, this is the fastest way to put the constraint in front of an operator this week.
Start here
Name the trigger. Get a realistic window in 48 hours.
A prime supplier letter, an affirmation date you cannot sign behind, an LOI in diligence. Tell me which one is running and I respond within 48 hours with a realistic timing window.