David Carneal

David Carneal

David Carneal is the Principal and Head Consultant at the Digital Efficiency Consulting Group. With over 20 years in process efficiency, change management and workflow development he has help companies elevate wasted time and grow profitability with ease.

About

David Carneal is the Founder and Principal of Digital Efficiency Consulting Group (DECG), where he helps organizations turn messy operations into systems that actually work. He specializes in process optimization, workflow redesign, and practical digital transformation for small-to-mid-sized businesses across manufacturing, distribution, professional services, and healthcare-adjacent industries.

With a career spanning operations, technology implementation, and business process improvement, Carneal is known for a simple philosophy: small improvements create real change. Rather than pursuing disruptive overhauls that stall out in planning documents, he focuses on identifying friction points inside everyday workflows, quantifying their real business impact, and delivering execution-ready roadmaps that teams can use immediately.

Before founding DECG, Carneal worked closely with executive teams, operations leaders, and frontline staff to diagnose bottlenecks in order management, production flow, customer onboarding, data handling, and cross-department handoffs. This hands-on experience shaped his practical approach. He does not sell theory. He builds clarity, priorities, and momentum.

Carneal is also deeply involved in developing structured consulting methodologies and reusable client tools, including operational assessments, efficiency scorecards, KPI frameworks, and implementation playbooks designed to help organizations sustain improvements long after an engagement ends. His firm’s deliverables emphasize transparency, documentation, and decision-ready insights that leadership teams can trust.

He is based in Southern California and works with clients across the United States.

Focus Areas

  • Skilled Problem Solver
  • Expert in Cost Reduction & Process Improvement
  • Process Management
  • Workflow Modernization
  • Business Process Evaluation
  • Modern Workplace Transformation
  • Operational Bottleneck Assessment

Specialties

Process DevelopmentChange ManagementCollaborative StrategyData Analysis

Latest Posts

Bottlenecks and Approvals: The Slowest Two-Step

Most teams don’t have an execution problem. They have a waiting problem. Work piles up behind one team, one person, or one “special process.” Then approvals show up to finish the job: decisions die in inboxes, and “quick sign-off” becomes a two-week vacation.

The Four Boring Moves That Make Office Automation Actually Work

Automation works when it’s boring: standardize intake, validate inputs, route work to the right owner, and send weird cases to an exception queue. Here’s a simple way to spot and pilot a workflow that won’t turn your team into bot babysitters.

Ownership Leaks: When “Shared” Means “Nobody”

“Shared ownership” sounds collaborative. In practice, it often means work ricochets between teams until the deadline shows up and somebody takes an emergency bite out of it. Ownership leaks are expensive because they create invisible delays.

IBM’s 1990s Wake-Up Call: When Efficiency Wasn’t Optional

IBM didn’t survive the early 1990s by holding more meetings or printing a prettier strategy deck. It survived by confronting ugly numbers, cutting through internal drag, and re-engineering how work actually flowed. This article breaks down the stakes IBM faced, the efficiency moves that mattered, and the hard operational questions most companies avoid. If your business is stuck in “busy” mode, this is your wake-up call, minus the multi-billion-dollar loss.

Big Plans Don’t Fail. Friction Wins.

Most strategies don’t fail in a dramatic explosion. They fail the way a shopping cart fails: one wobbly wheel, a squeaky hinge, and suddenly you’re steering with your whole body. If you’re a department leader, you’ve seen it.

All Posts by David Carneal

From Raw to Dashboard: The Four Layers That Prevent Dashboard Drama

Dashboards don’t cause drama. Dashboards reveal drama that was already hiding in the plumbing. If your BI tool connects straight to source systems, you might get speed. You also get fragility, conflicting logic, and one broken report away from a minor organizational meltdown. You’ll get a practical checklist you can run immediately, plus a clear next step to reduce rework and rebuild trust.

Culture That Sticks: Make Digital Efficiency a Habit

Digital efficiency lasts when it becomes routine, not a one-time project. This post outlines culture signals, a simple operating rhythm, leadership behaviors, recognition practices, and a stop/start/continue reset. It also names common culture killers and offers simple ways to measure momentum without overcomplicating it.

The Buzzword Petting Zoo: Data Farm vs Lake vs Warehouse vs Lakehouse

Every few years the industry invents a new animal and asks you to adopt it. Lake. Warehouse. Lakehouse. Mesh. Fabric. Probably “data terrarium” is next. The name matters less than the rules you enforce. So let’s compare these patterns in plain English, then talk about why a “data farm” approach keeps you out of the swamp. You’ll get a practical checklist you can run immediately, plus a clear next step to reduce rework and rebuild trust.

Resource Visibility: Smart Resource Management That Pays Off

Resource management improves when teams can see where time and money go. This post explains what visibility unlocks, where cost leaks hide, and how to do a consolidation pass. It adds data source guidance, KPI starter packs, security reminders, and a quick license/tool audit to reclaim wasted spend.

Data Integrity in Plain English: The Chain You’re Actually Managing

Data integrity isn’t philosophical. It’s not a vibe. It’s whether you can reproduce the same number tomorrow without reenacting a crime scene investigation. In the real world, the question shows up like this: “Why does the KPI say 92% here and 87% there?” KPI means Key Performance Indicator, but on bad days it stands for Keep People Investigating. You’ll get a practical checklist you can run immediately, plus a clear next step to reduce rework and rebuild trust.

Automate the Boring Stuff: Task Automation Without Drama

Automation delivers the most value when it removes repeatable, low-risk work. This post offers first targets, an automation ladder, and a 1–3 scoring rubric to pick the right candidate. It includes prerequisites, traps to avoid, a pilot checklist, and simple impact metrics to prove results.

Process Optimization: Find Repeat Work and Delete It

Process optimization is mostly repeat-work removal. This post walks through a 30-minute mapping exercise, shows where waste hides, and includes a quick 15-minute time study you can run on a single transaction. It also adds example improvements and diagnostic questions to uncover repeat work quickly.

When KPIs Become Rumors (and Meetings Become Courtrooms)

If your KPI shows up as three different numbers in the same meeting, congratulations: you don’t have a KPI, you have a choose-your-own-adventure. This is how “reporting” quietly turns into courtroom drama. Sales brings Exhibit A. Ops brings Exhibit B. Finance brings Exhibit C. Everyone is technically correct in their own universe, and nobody is correct in the universe where decisions get made. You’ll get a practical checklist you can run immediately, plus a clear next step to reduce rework and rebuild trust.

Frontline Braintrust: Who Should Be in the Efficiency Room

Efficiency conversations work best when the people doing the work are in the room. This post explains who to invite, how to keep ideas alive with simple ground rules, and a tight 30-minute agenda. It also includes starter questions, meeting traps to avoid, and an output checklist so the meeting turns into action.

The Data Farm: From Integrity to Dashboards

If your leadership meetings include three dashboards and three different “truths,” you don’t have a KPI problem, you have a data integrity problem This article explains data integrity in business terms and introduces the “data farm” pattern: raw preservation, standardization, a governed semantic layer, and dashboards that consume certified outputs You’ll also get a practical roadmap, common failure modes, and one small step you can take this week to make “where did this number come from?” a one-minute answer.

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