Operations ยท Supply Chain & 3PL
Supply chain and 3PL operations consultant
MGH has spent a decade inside global supply chains, third-party logistics selection and onboarding, and inventory and fulfilment operations, including distribution for CE and FDA regulated medical device product. A 3PL relationship is won or lost after the contract is signed, and that is the part most selection processes skip.
Last updated: August 2026
The short answer
A 3PL selection process usually stops at signing the contract. The real supply chain work is everything that comes after: onboarding, data handoff, inventory accuracy, and what happens when volume or product mix changes. A supply chain operations consultant who only runs the RFP has no stake in whether the relationship actually performs once it's live.
What to know before a 3PL selection or supply chain review
- 3PL selection is a procurement exercise; onboarding and ongoing performance are an operations exercise, and most engagements stop at the first.
- A warehouse operations review should test what actually happens on the floor, not just what the contract says should happen.
- Supply chain design across multiple business entities needs a structure where shared infrastructure is a deliberate trade-off, not an accounting accident.
- Regulated product, CE or FDA medical device specifically, changes what a 3PL RFP has to screen for from the start, not after go-live.
- Inventory, fulfilment and returns operations are usually where a supply chain design first breaks in practice.
Where 3PL relationships actually run into trouble
The provider is rarely the whole reason a 3PL relationship disappoints. Four points after the contract decide whether it does.
Onboarding and data handoff
SKU mapping, systems integration into the 3PL's WMS, and getting inventory data to agree across both sides usually take longer than the RFP that preceded them. A selection process that ends at the signature leaves this stage to whoever notices it's missing.
Service-level visibility
An invoice tells you what you were charged, not what actually happened on the floor. Real visibility means pick accuracy, cycle count discipline and exception handling you can see and act on, not a monthly summary you take on faith.
Inventory accuracy and reconciliation
Inventory, fulfilment and returns operations are usually where a supply chain design first breaks in practice, small discrepancies between systems compound quietly until a stockout or an over-commit makes the gap visible.
Regulated or traceable product
CE or FDA regulated product carries storage conditions, lot tracking and recall readiness that a standard logistics RFP never screens for. Multi-entity operations add a second layer: different business units often need different service levels from the same shared network.
Supply chain design across multiple entities
A holding company or a group with several operating entities can usually get better freight and warehousing terms by pooling volume, but pooling without costing each entity's real share turns a shared network into a hidden subsidy. The fix is ordinary cost allocation, not a clever contract: know what each entity actually uses before deciding what it shares, and revisit the split as volume shifts rather than leaving the original deal in place indefinitely. This is the same problem Espresso's holding company operations work is built around: rolling up cost and coverage across subsidiaries without losing the entity-level picture.
How MGH approaches supply chain and 3PL operations
MGH's work spans supply chain and 3PL operations, ERP planning and implementation, and SalesOps from CRM through to closed-won, across cross-domain integrations. On regulated medical device engagements, distribution has to account for CE and FDA obligations from the start, not after the contract is signed.
We don't stop at the RFP. We execute the onboarding and stay through the first live cycles, fitted to your budget, your timeline and how your organisation works, rather than handing off a shortlist.
Common questions
What is the difference between a 3PL selection consultant and a 3PL implementation consultant?
Selection is the RFP: comparing providers, negotiating terms, choosing who gets the contract. Implementation is everything after signing, data and SKU handoff, systems integration, the first weeks of live volume, where most of the real risk sits. A consultant who only runs the RFP has no stake in whether the relationship performs once it goes live.
What does a warehouse operations review actually check?
Whether what happens on the floor matches what the contract and the systems say should happen: pick accuracy, cycle count discipline, how exceptions get handled, and whether inventory data in your systems is trustworthy enough to plan against. A 3PL invoice can look clean while the operation underneath it is quietly unreliable.
How do you design a supply chain across multiple business entities without one subsidizing another?
By costing volume, warehousing and freight per entity before pooling anything, so shared infrastructure is a deliberate trade-off both sides can see, not an accounting accident. Multi-entity supply chain design across separate business units or subsidiaries is part of the same operations reengineering work as everything else we do, not a bolt-on.
Do you handle 3PL selection for CE or FDA regulated medical device product specifically?
Yes. A 3PL handling CE or FDA regulated product inherits real obligations, storage conditions, lot tracking, recall readiness, that a standard logistics RFP never screens for, and that has to be built into selection from the start rather than added after the contract is signed. See our medical device operations page for the regulated side of that work.
Does supply chain work connect to ERP and SalesOps?
It should. Inventory, fulfilment and order status live partly in the 3PL's systems and partly in your ERP and CRM, and a supply chain project planned in isolation from those systems tends to leave a manual reconciliation step behind. Cross-domain integration is part of how we plan supply chain and 3PL work, not an afterthought.
Related
- Medical device operations consultant: the regulated side of distribution, where CE and FDA obligations change what a 3PL RFP has to screen for.
- ERP implementation consultant: inventory and fulfilment data usually lives partly in the ERP, planned alongside the supply chain, not after it.
- What is an operations OS?: the tool MGH built to run the same map, cost, fix loop across multiple entities.
Talk to MGH about supply chain and 3PL operations
Whether you're running a 3PL selection or already picked a provider and need someone to make the relationship actually work, we'd rather hear the specific problem than send a generic proposal.
Get in touch