Optimal Relies on DCS Warehouse Consulting to Position Operation for Growth

Optimal, a Keralty company, is a Houston-area logistics hub serving the nation’s largest medical and surgical supply distributors. Over the past three years, Optimal has twice turned to Waller Consulting, part of Designed Conveyor Systems (DCS), to help its operation keep pace with rapid growth. Waller first guided Optimal’s move from an 80,000-square-foot facility into its current 140,000-square-foot distribution center without disrupting service levels. Then, in 2026, Waller completed a two-phase warehouse consulting engagement: a facility and leadership assessment, followed by 12 weeks of on-site implementation support. Optimal has adopted the vast majority of Waller’s recommendations and is already planning a third phase as it works toward growing from a $150 million business to a $500 million business.

The Challenge

Optimal serves as a third-party logistics (3PL) services provider hub for the national distributors responsible for approximately 90% of the U.S. healthcare supply chain. Those distributors bring products the last mile to acute care hospitals, post-acute care settings, long-term care facilities, and government customers. Optimal supports their branches across the country through a hub-and-spoke model, explained Manny Losada, CEO of Optimal.

“Our customers consider us an in-source 3PL,” Losada said. “We’re agnostic — we’re neutral to the competitive base. The reason our customers come to us is that we’re a reliable, dependable source for them.”

That neutrality makes an aggregation model possible. A single truckload or container leaving Optimal’s facility can carry freight bound for competing distributors’ branches, cubing out products from many medical manufacturers to create economies for everyone.

Capacity Prompts Transition to New Facility

In 2023, Optimal reached capacity in its 80,000-square-foot facility. The company — which had worked with Waller on previous engagements — returned to the consulting firm to help plan a move into a 140,000-square-foot building within the Houston area. Critically, the transition had to take place without interrupting service to customers.

“They worked side by side with us on a very complex transition,” Losada recalled. “It was mapped out very well and designed very well.” Within a week of the move, Optimal was back to business at nearly 100%. “Furniture was still being delivered. I had people standing at laptop stations rather than cubicles and desks, but we managed through that.”

Along with reconfiguring the new building’s racking, Waller helped Optimal redesign its core processes, including receiving, put away, quality control, picking, and shipping.

Growth, Acquisition Lead to Additional Warehouse Consulting Engagement

In the years following the move, Optimal doubled in size. It also became part of Keralty, a $3.5 billion healthcare provider headquartered in Spain. Today, Optimal now serves as the supply chain arm for its parent company while continuing to serve its longtime customers.

“We felt like teenagers starting to run a little faster — maybe ahead of our skis at times,” Losada said of the exponential growth of his company.

By early 2026, Optimal was experiencing severe inventory congestion and relying on 20 to 40 containers of off-site storage at a significant cost. Losada was also concerned that the company’s growth was beginning to outpace its operations leadership. Once again, Optimal called Waller.

The Solution

Led by Waller Consulting’s Managing Directors Al Richey and Dan Denton, phase one was a comprehensive assessment of the facility and its operations, completed in January and February 2026. At Losada’s request, it also included a candid assessment of Optimal’s leadership team, from supervisors to senior managers.

Losada deliberately held back his own conclusions. “I did not come out and tell Al or Dan, ‘Here’s the problem.’ I waited for them to make the assessment,” he noted. “My initial reaction was that I wasn’t that far off.”

The data-driven assessment was challenging at times, Losada acknowledged. “There are a lot of questions when you have outside eyes coming into your home,” he said. “You think everything looks coordinated and organized until somebody comes in and says, ‘That could be improved.’”

Optimal runs three distinct business units on its NetSuite enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform, each with different data requirements, demand patterns, and lead times. Waller analyzed inventory turnover, pick frequency, quality control, and regulatory requirements for each unit.

“It wasn’t just a straightforward, ‘OK, let’s run a report,’” Losada explained. “It was more, ‘Let’s dig in.’”

After being challenged on the data, Optimal’s leadership quickly recognized the need to look at the business differently, he added. Several of Waller’s reporting recommendations are now part of the company’s standard operating procedures.

Warehouse Consulting Project Includes Operational Assessment, Execution

When the assessment wrapped up in early March 2026, Losada asked the Waller team to help execute its recommendations. Together, they wrote the proposal for phase two on site: a 12-week engagement in which Richey and Denton worked at the facility every other week, coaching Optimal’s team and ensuring changes were put into practice.

Phase two addressed both the physical operation and its processes. Changes include reconfiguring and adding racking to make better use of the building’s vertical space, reorganizing lanes and the receiving area, and changing how cold storage is utilized. Waller also identified safety improvements related to signage, how and where inventory is stored, and rack stability. Optimal installed new performance metrics based on Waller’s recommendations.

The assessment also confirmed that Optimal needed new operations leadership to take the business to the next level. “It was not an easy decision,” admitted Losada, who had hand-picked the previous leader. Waller helped define the role and joined Optimal’s interview teams. Over 75 days, the search narrowed from 15 candidates to three, and Losada turned to Richey and Denton for their professional recommendation. Optimal’s new vice president of operations joined the company in September 2026.

“I don’t consider the Waller team an outside contractor. I consider them part of my leadership team,” emphasized Losada. “We challenge each other. We don’t always agree. But we’re very transparent — here are the negatives, here are the positives.”

The Results

Optimal is currently implementing nearly all of Waller’s recommendations. Changes to lanes, receiving, key performance indicators (KPIs), and cold storage are underway, guided by written 90-day objectives.

Chief among those objectives is eliminating overtime. “Saturday has become a work day, which is unacceptable,” Losada said. Recapturing a half day to a full day of productive time would be worth an estimated $700,000 to $800,000 to the business, he added.

Better data is also improving how Optimal serves its customers. “The better we are from a data automation perspective, the easier it is for our customers to do business with us,” explained Losada.

With its new operations leader settling in, Optimal plans to bring Waller back for phase three, likely in late 2026 or early 2027, as it pursues its goal of doubling the size of the business.

“The consultative process that the Waller team introduced to my leadership team set the stage for what we are today and where we’re heading in the future,” Losada concluded. “This was not all perfume and roses, because we had to take hard looks, and you have to accept positive criticism at times, which we did. It toughened our skins, and I think it made our people better. At the end of the day, that’s what you hope to achieve.”

About Optimal

Optimal, a Keralty company, is dedicated to reducing healthcare costs by delivering efficient supply chain solutions. Based in Missouri City, Texas, the ISO 9001:2015-certified company provides master distribution, government services, overstock, and sales solutions for the healthcare industry. Keralty is a multinational health group with more than 40 years of experience and operations across the United States, Latin America, Spain, and the United Arab Emirates. Visit www.optimalmax.com to learn more.