Operations & Manufacturing Consulting

Operational
clarity.
Sustainable
growth.

Electric Bolt helps hardware companies and manufacturers build leaner, more resilient operations — from early-stage NPI through scaled production.

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15+ yrs
Hardware operations leadership
65%
Per-employee output improvement
$2.1M
In lost sales prevented
96%
Global S&OP forecast accuracy

About

Built in the
factory, not
the classroom.

Electric Bolt was founded by Matt Bolton — a senior product and operations leader who has spent 15+ years inside hardware companies, not just advising them. From scaling a 12-person startup into a globally recognized manufacturer, to turning around a struggling production business through a pandemic, his expertise is earned through doing.

The work here is direct, practical, and built around results. No bloated engagements. No junior consultants. You work with Matt — someone who has owned manufacturing operations, drove the adoption and rollout of a proprietary ERP/MRP system across finance, scheduling, and inventory, managed global S&OP cycles, and led NPI across mission-critical hardware products.

If your operations feel like they're running you instead of the other way around, this is where that changes.

Experience

15+ years
inside hardware
operations.

From early-stage startups to globally scaled manufacturers — the kind of experience that only comes from doing the work, not studying it.

A Lean Master certified practitioner, co-author of Building Open Source Hardware (Addison-Wesley, 2014), and a decade-long veteran of SparkFun Electronics — the world's largest open-source hardware manufacturer — Matt brings a depth of real-world experience that most consultants simply don't have.

Services

Four ways
to engage.

01
Operations Clarity Audit
One-time engagement · 2–3 weeks
A structured diagnostic of your production, inventory, and supply chain operations. Delivered as a prioritized findings report with a clear 90-day action plan. The right starting point before any larger initiative.
$5,500 Fixed fee
02
Lean Transformation Sprint
Project engagement · 6–8 weeks
Hands-on implementation of lean principles across a targeted workflow — NPI, S&OP, production yield, or inventory planning. Includes process redesign, KPI definition, and team enablement.
$9,500 – $14,000 Scoped by complexity
03
NPI Launch Advisory
Project engagement · Per launch
End-to-end guidance from concept validation through manufacturing readiness. Covers product requirements, manufacturability review, supply chain setup, and launch risk mitigation. Particularly valuable for hardware startups approaching their first or second production run.
$7,500 – $12,000 Per product launch
04
Fractional VP of Operations
Monthly retainer · Ongoing
Ongoing embedded leadership — attending key meetings, owning operational decisions, mentoring internal teams, and keeping growth initiatives on track. For companies that need senior ops leadership without a full-time hire.
$4,000 – $6,000 Per month · 10–15 hrs

How It Works

A straightforward
process.

01
Discovery Call
A 30–45 minute conversation to understand your current state, bottlenecks, and goals. No pitch, no pressure — just a real exchange to see if this is the right fit.
02
Scoping & Proposal
A clear, written proposal with defined scope, deliverables, timeline, and fixed fee. You'll know exactly what you're getting before anything starts.
03
Engagement
Hands-on, direct work — no handoffs to junior staff. Structured check-ins throughout to ensure alignment and surface anything that needs to shift.
04
Delivery & Transfer
Every engagement ends with documented outputs and a clear handoff. Your team should be able to sustain and build on the work independently.

Results

The work
speaks for itself.

$800K
Inventory holding cost reduction
Streamlined supply chain and inventory processes, improved vendor coordination, and redesigned forecasting to eliminate excess stock while sustaining service levels above 98%.
72% → 98%
Production yield improvement
Established quality standards, test systems, and manufacturing discipline at SparkFun Electronics, transforming production yields and enabling profitable scale without external funding.
65%
Increase in per-employee output
Applied lean methodology across production operations to dramatically improve throughput — without adding headcount or increasing labor costs.
40%
Faster demand–supply decisions
Redesigned S&OP and cross-functional decision-making processes, reducing cycle time from weeks to days and improving revenue plan attainment from 88% to 97%.
$2.1M
In prevented lost sales
Identified and mitigated demand–supply imbalances before they became revenue-impacting events, while simultaneously capturing $1.4M in upside opportunities.
55% → 22%
Labor-to-sales ratio improvement
Rebuilt operations and production throughput at Otis Craft Collective during pandemic conditions — transforming an unsustainable cost structure into a healthy, sellable business.

Contact

Let's talk
operations.

Email
[email protected]
Phone
(303) 253-2662
Based in
Denver, CO — serving clients nationally
Response time
Within one business day