About — Sam, Founder | PainKiller Consulting

15 years on the inside. Not watching from a meeting room.

PainKiller wasn't built by a consultant who's read about logistics. It was built by someone who ran an Aldi regional distribution centre through Covid — delivering to 110 supermarkets, 16 hours a day, while the country was at standstill. Then led project work across 14 Lidl regional distribution centres. Then built this, to apply that learning to the problems other operators don't see.

The Background

Sam has spent 15 years inside warehouse operations — not as an external consultant observing from a distance, but as the person responsible for the numbers. Pick rates, labour efficiency, goods-in throughput, overtime costs. The metrics that either make a site profitable or quietly drain it.

The career has run through some of the most operationally demanding environments in the UK. Aldi. Lidl. British Airways ground operations. WHSmith distribution. Then manufacturing, FMCG, and specialist 3PL alongside. Different sectors, different cultures, different scales — and the same patterns showing up everywhere.

The pattern Sam kept seeing was this: operations struggling with problems that had been attributed to the wrong cause. A labour problem that was actually a slotting problem. An overtime problem that was actually a handover problem. A throughput problem that was actually a dock scheduling problem. The diagnosis was wrong, so the solution was wrong, so the problem came back.

Most of the time, the cause is only visible from the floor — not from a dashboard, not from a process map, not from a SteerCo. The people on the floor know. They've often been saying so for months. They just haven't been asked the right questions by anyone with the standing to act on the answers.

PainKiller was built on that observation. An outside perspective, applied at floor level, by people who've actually run operations like yours. If we can't find savings greater than the audit fee, you don't pay for it. That's not marketing — it's the only way to make the offer honest.

A small core team. Operations, customer success, and specialist insight — working as one.

Most warehouse consultancies are run by operators who don't think commercially, or by commercial people who don't understand operations. PainKiller is built deliberately on both — because the problems clients pay to fix don't sit cleanly in one box. Every engagement draws on three integrated capabilities, working together as one team.

Three principles that don't change from job to job.

The floor is the only source of truth.

Data tells you what is happening. The floor tells you why. Every audit involves time spent observing the operation as it actually runs — not as it appears in the system, and not as managers describe it in a meeting room. Staff interviews are included in every audit for the same reason: the people doing the work know where the problems are. They've often been saying so for months.

The report is the start, not the end.

A findings report that sits in a shared drive is worthless. Every report is written to be actionable — prioritised by impact, explained clearly enough to hand to a team leader, and followed up with a debrief call to make sure nothing is unclear. The goal is a set of changes that actually get implemented, not a document that ticks a box.

If we can't find savings, we don't invoice for them.

The zero-risk guarantee isn't marketing. It's the only way to make the offer honest. If an operation's problems don't yield savings greater than the audit fee — which is rare, but possible — it would be wrong to charge for it. The guarantee reflects a genuine belief that the work will find value, not a legal escape clause buried in terms.

No vendor relationships. No referral fees. No product quotas.

PainKiller doesn't resell software, earn commissions on recommendations, or have preferred supplier relationships of any kind. This matters because the recommendations in every report need to be based solely on what the operation actually needs.

If the right answer involves technology, the report will say so — and it will specify the category of solution required, not a named vendor. If the right answer involves no external cost at all, the report will say that too, even when it means the only next step is internal.

Start with a conversation. 20 minutes. No deck.

Book a free 20-minute diagnostic call. Tell us about your operation and what isn't working. We'll tell you honestly whether the audit makes sense — and if it doesn't, we'll say so and recommend whichever of the other services is the right fit. Or none, if that's the honest answer.

15 years on the inside. Not watching from a meeting room.

There are warehouse consultants. And then there are people who have actually run them.

Ran an Aldi RDC through Covid. 110 supermarkets supplied. 16 hours a day.

Led project work across 14 Lidl RDCs. Most consultants haven't set foot in even one.

A small core team. Operations, customer success, and specialist insight — working as one.

15 years inside the operations we now consult on

Award-winning customer-success leadership, on every engagement

Senior operations specialists, integrated into every engagement

Three principles that don't change from job to job.

No vendor relationships. No referral fees. No product quotas.

Start with a conversation. 20 minutes. No deck.