Operating Pain Map

Tell us where it hurts — we'll come back with the one fix worth making first.

About your company

What kind of business are you?

This only changes the wording — every question stays the same.

Company *Your nameTitleWhat you makeLocationRevenue / headcount (est.)Your work email *

A few open questions

Walk us through a normal week on the floor — where does it get painful?What's changed in the last 18 months — tariffs, labor, demand, suppliers?If you could wave a wand and kill one recurring fire, what would it be?What do you do in spreadsheets / on a whiteboard that you wish a system just did?

Pain-point & bottleneck checklist

Check what applies and rate severity — L = annoyance · M = costs real money · H = keeps you up at night.

Pricing & Margin

Don't know true margin by product/customer

Discounts given without governance

Can't pass through material / tariff cost

Quoting is slow or inconsistent

Margin eroding, cause unclear

Supply Chain & Inventory

Forecast inaccurate / always firefighting

Too much / wrong inventory tying up cash

Stockouts / missed OTIF

Long / unreliable supplier lead times

No real S&OP / SIOP process

Sales & Demand

Weak pipeline / demand visibility

Win/loss not understood

Over-reliant on a few big customers

Operations & Labor

Can't hire / retain skilled labor

Tribal knowledge walking out the door

Reactive maintenance / machine downtime

Quality / scrap / rework

New-employee onboarding too slow

Data & Technology

Runs on spreadsheets / whiteboards

ERP data not trusted / not used

No dashboards / reporting is manual

Disconnected systems, double entry

Macro / External

Tariffs / trade pressure

Material cost volatility

Demand uncertainty

Reshoring / new competition

Short term vs long term

Where it hurts this year — and where you want to be in three.

Next 12 monthsShort term — what has to get better this year? The pain that's costing you money right now.The 3-year pictureLong term — where do you want the business in three years? Revenue, new markets, new products, succession…What's in the wayWhat's most likely to stop you getting there — capacity, people, capital, customers, systems?

Wrap-up

Your #1 pain — in your own wordsWho owns fixing it? How urgent? What does not fixing it cost you?Anyone else we should talk to?

ADEXMA collects everything you enter here — your company and contact details, your written answers, the severity ratings you set, and any people or firms you name under referrals — and stores it securely in our CRM to prepare your pain map, organize submissions, and follow up. Read our privacy notice.

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