Mindlin Consulting is a small, senior team of manufacturing-systems people, led by Dan Mindlin — four decades from blast-furnace floors to the VP of Operations chair. Clean data, integrations that hold, reporting that tells the truth. With AI as the force multiplier, we take any legacy application and turn it into a modern, bespoke system — connected to anything, monitored so it never surprises you. When a fix should outlive the engagement, it becomes Clairvient.
Three things we can now say yes to that used to require a bench of six and a budget you didn't have.
FoxPro, Access, VB6, a green screen, the in-house ERP from 1999.
Every line of code, every table, every report — in days, not months.
What the workflow should become; every number tied to the old system on real data.
Built for how the work actually flows. The business never stops.
AI reads the code and drafts the build; we decide what the workflow should become. Module by module, reconciled at every step.
Legacy modernization → 02 / CONNECTIf it has an API we connect it properly. If it doesn't, we build one. Mapped, reconciled to root cause, monitored.
Integrations & APIs → 03 / KEEP IT RUNNINGNightOps — a central monitor with an agent on every server — installed, documented, handed to your IT.
Infrastructure & monitoring →Not features. The specific, expensive things that go wrong in a plant when the systems have drifted for a decade and nobody left fully understands them.
Item masters, BOMs, supplier and customer records drift over years. We clean them up and keep them clean — so every report and every decision downstream is worth the paper it's on.
Cost-to-serve, OTIF with root cause, margin by the cut that actually matters to you. Built on your real data — not a vendor's polished demo dataset.
ERP, MES, PLM, CRM, shop floor, e-invoicing — systems that were never designed to talk to each other, made to talk reliably and stay talking after we're gone.
Weighing an ERP move or a seven-figure spend? You get an operator's read on the trade-offs — not a reseller's pitch for whatever they're paid to sell.
Twenty-five years inside the system. Support that leaves you owning it, and a review with an evidence-graded scoreboard, not a slide deck.
Fourth Shift consulting → TRAININGPersonalized, role-based training for the replacement — on your own system, remote, with written work instructions you keep. The class the vendor can't fill anymore.
Fourth Shift training → VISIBAR · VISIWATCH · IAMSData-collection scripts, event monitoring and physical inventory — with an AI expert on the documentation and our field conventions.
The toolset → ASSESSMENTA fixed-scope read of your environment and implementation. Graded findings, a roadmap, quick wins this quarter.
The assessment → INTEGRATIONSPLM, CRM, EDI, e-invoicing, corporate Oracle and SAP feeds — mapped, reconciled to root cause, monitored.
Integration work → CLAIRVIENTA second skin over the ERP you own: validated dashboards, ranked exceptions, visual integration modules.
Clairvient → MODERNIZATIONReverse-engineered, documented, rebuilt module by module on a modern stack — without stopping the business.
Legacy modernization → INFRASTRUCTUREMicrosoft, Google, Linux. Monitoring, alerting and logging that catch failures before the shift does.
Infrastructure & monitoring → ERP MIGRATIONFourth Shift, on-prem SyteLine, Dynamics GP. Master data cleansed and mapped, future-state workflows, SOPs and training — before the partner discovers it on your dime.
Migration readiness → PROBLEMS SOLVEDThe app nobody can maintain, systems that won't talk, the month-end that won't close, the outage nobody saw coming.
Problem-led case studies →We don't ask you to believe a five-year vision before you've seen us fix anything. Each step pays for the next and the proof compounds.
The broken extract, the close that won't tie, the report you keep asking for.
Code, schema, data, the workarounds in people's heads. Read-only first.
Scoped tight, fixed price. AI drafts; we decide and verify.
Nothing ships that we can't show you in your own numbers.
Documented, monitored, owned by your team. Then the next step — if it earns it.
We start with the urgent, specific problem. Scoped tight, closed fast.
Once the data's trustworthy, we build the visibility that was missing — and the surprises stop being surprises.
Stay on your stack, modernize, or move — a straight read from people who've done all three.
Most systems consultants have never owned an operation. Our principal, Dan Mindlin, led one — 110 people at a $200M medical device manufacturer, a quarter of the company, inheriting tough facilities and a team that hadn't been set up to succeed. They restructured the work together, moving from one-builder-per-system to an assembly-line flow that made quality a property of the process instead of a burden on the person.
When the flagship RF energy system launched into demand running at double the forecast, that team worked nearly 200 material shortages with engineering and suppliers — creative sourcing, redesigns on the fly — and didn't miss a delivery. That's the pressure your plant lives under. We've lived it too, and we know it's never one person who gets you through it.
So when a number looks wrong, we can usually trace it to the transaction — and work shoulder to shoulder with your accountants and planners, in their language, until it's right. Our job is to make your people successful with their systems, not to be the smartest people in the room.
Our principal's path — every chapter added a discipline, and none of them replaced the last. It's why the team's work today draws on all of it at once.
In at nineteen, supporting PC and MicroVAX systems on blast furnace floors. Built reagent performance models that backed pay-per-performance contracts and CAD databases of pneumatic reagent delivery systems. Brought systems back online after twelve hours of abuse and frustrated resets — because the furnace doesn't wait. Everything since carries that standard.
// discipline gained: engineering under consequencesBuilt a Cleveland foundry's network from nothing and guided them through their first ERP implementation (Symix). Wrote AutoLISP programs that automated drawing generation for heat-treat fixtures — the first time repetitive engineering work got turned into software.
// discipline gained: systems + automationRan systems and Fourth Shift ERP for a precision products manufacturer's Cleveland division. Modernized their reporting, carried them through Y2K without incident, and got a working education in the P&L, the balance sheet, and cost accounting — from inside the system that produces them.
// discipline gained: manufacturing financeBuilt the first "second skin": a system wrapped around an investment foundry's Fourth Shift that the client used more than the ERP itself — process masters, work instructions with image and video support, years before anyone sold "digital work instructions." Then: MES and timekeeping on Syteline with real-time data collection. Wireless CNC program delivery for a copper components plant. BI for FDA-regulated pharma and Chicago flavor houses. A complete seven-division ERP for a steel mill supplier that has run their business for 23 years and counting. A forge shop MES handling receiving through shipping — still in service, now being rebuilt on a modern web stack.
// discipline gained: range — and the second-skin thesisTwo years as VP of Operations: 110 people, a quarter of the company — a team that, given a system worth working in, never missed a single system delivery. Then onto the SAP S/4HANA program — master data lead and the PLM-to-SAP integration between their Arena and SAP environments. Ran the operation, then rebuilt the system that runs the operation — the work seen from both chairs. The engagement concluded in 2026 with the work delivered.
// discipline gained: the view from the P&LWhen serious AI arrived, Dan put it to work immediately — and it changed what an experienced team can deliver. It has been used to build a full enterprise model — CRM, ERP, QMS, PLM, WMS — with an intelligence layer that ranks alerts by business impact and eases teams into managing the operation with AI. In 2026 he returned to full-time independence to build the team here. Twenty-five years of the second-skin pattern, now productized as Clairvient.
// discipline gained: the force multiplierManufacturing runs through weather — demand swings, supply shocks, data drifting quietly out of true. Clairvient is the steady ship: a second skin over your existing ERP that watches the operation continuously, ranks what needs attention by business impact, and eases your team into running the business with AI. The first version of this pattern was built around a foundry's ERP in 2000, and the client used it more than the ERP itself. It has been rebuilt for two and a half decades — foundries, forges, food plants, a seven-division distributor. Clairvient isn't version one of a new idea. It's the current generation of a proven one.
You work directly with the people doing the thinking. The goal is never to make you dependent on us: we build systems your team can run, document what we learn, and measure success by how well your people do after we've stepped back.
Forged, not certified. Four decades from a blast-furnace floor at nineteen to VP of Operations, and the SAP S/4HANA master-data seat. Sets the scope, owns the judgment, answers the phone.
Builds and ships the modern stack — the web apps, integrations, dashboards and Clairvient modules that replace what the legacy system used to do.
MIT graduate and former senior director of supply chain. Runs client relations and operations — the reason you never wait on us for an answer.
As many years in Fourth Shift as Dan, plus SQL reporting and IT management. Has also worked SAP and Infor LN — the second set of senior hands on every Fourth Shift engagement.
+ specialists we bring in as the work needs them — Fourth Shift, infrastructure, data, finance — so a small team moves like a large one without the overhead.
Tell us what's broken. Bring the problem itself to the first call — the way we work now, we'd rather show you than tell you. It's our honor and privilege to help.
You'll get a straight answer and a tight scope. If we can't help, we'll tell you that too — and usually who can.
