Technology & Operations

15 years inside the data.
Here's what I learned.

I've spent 15+ years building the ERP, reporting, EDI, and automation infrastructure that manufacturing companies depend on — and cleaning up what happens when nobody else will. Don't Panic

About Me Read the Blog
Frank Shea, Jr.

The Short Version

I've spent my career in the weeds of manufacturing operations — the ERP that nobody fully understands, the reporting that takes three people and two days when it should take a button press, the EDI infrastructure that breaks every time a trading partner changes a field, the month-end close that feels like defusing a bomb with a spreadsheet.

I know this because I was the person doing all of it — accounting, EDI, IT, SQL reporting, Power BI, inventory, system administration — for a single $50M+ manufacturing company. For fifteen years. I taught myself SQL at 30 because nobody else would. I closed the books from my phone on vacation because there was nobody else to do it.

I'm not someone who read about manufacturing. I'm the guy who lived inside the data.

15+
Years in manufacturing
& distribution
40%
Efficiency improvement
in order processing
1,000+
FTE hours eliminated
through automation
$50M+
Company revenue
range managed

New Venture

OpsLedger

Turning operational events into financial truth.

Every manufacturing company has the same problem: things happen on the dock, in the warehouse, through EDI — and the financial system finds out about it three weeks later. OpsLedger connects what happens to what the books say happened, in something approaching real time. Because your P&L shouldn't be a work of historical fiction.

Guide Entries

What I actually know

Not a list of buzzwords. A list of things I've built, broken, and rebuilt over 15 years.

Entry 01

ERP Systems

QuickBooks to Dynamics GP migrations. The full transformation, not the brochure version. I did it from the inside.

Entry 02

Business Intelligence

Power BI, SQL, data warehousing. I built the reporting infrastructure that replaced "can you pull that number?" with a dashboard.

Entry 03

EDI & Supply Chain

Walmart, Home Depot, Amazon, AutoZone. I built and maintained EDI for all of them. The computer sends the right number. Usually.

Entry 04

Process Automation

Python, Power Automate, Power Query. If someone is copy-pasting between Excel sheets, that's not a process, it's a prayer.

Entry 05

Financial Operations

Month-end close, reconciliation, inventory, AP/AR. The unsexy work that determines whether your numbers mean anything.

Entry 06

Digital Strategy

Technology roadmaps for companies that know they need to modernize but don't know where to start. Without the jargon.

Read the Guide →

Tool

Accord

Most projects don't fail during execution. They fail during interpretation. Accord turns conversations, emails, and meeting notes into a clear, agreed project definition before work begins.

Learn More →

Want to connect?

I write about the systems, processes, and hard-won lessons from 15 years in manufacturing operations. Follow along or say hello.

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