Accenture has bought Myrtle Consulting Group, a Houston-based industrial operations consulting firm.
Founded in 2012, Myrtle helps chemicals, mining, life sciences, consumer products, and other manufacturers produce and distribute their goods more safely and efficiently. The firm specializes in optimizing sourcing, production, supply chain operations, and execution. Myrtle also advises on organizational design, change management, and leadership development.
The firm has grown at a solid clip in the past eight years, and boasts a team of approximately 150 professionals across nine offices in the US, Canada, Mexico, Colombia, the UK, and South Africa. Myrtle in 2018 acquired Kalium Consulting, a mining and heavy metals specialist, and last year opened a Cincinnati office.
Accenture will roll the company into its Industry X division, which helps industrial firms transform their factory operations via innovative technologies such as artificial intelligence, internet of things, and automation.
“Cost, quality, and safety remain a constant and rising challenge for manufacturing and operations leaders,” said Nigel Stacey, global lead of Accenture Industry X. “They need to free untapped value across production sites and distribution centers, so they can invest in resilient and responsible operating models for manufacturing and supply chains that are future-proof and digital-enabled. This is what the combined skills of Accenture and Myrtle will help them achieve.”
Myrtle’s previous successful engagements include helping a chemicals firm cut $2.5 million in costs through a revamped demand planning process, and helping a global dairy producer achieve $20 million in annual savings via a redesigned supply chain – cutting overtime labor spend by 56% and improving yield by 20%.
“Becoming part of Accenture Industry X will allow us to pair our frontline operational expertise with Accenture’s global reach and digital capabilities to bring solutions to clients that will transform their operations from the ground up,” said Myrtle CEO Edwin Bosso, who joins Accenture as a managing director.
Industry X (formerly Industry X.0) in 2018 absorbed Pillar Technology, a Columbus-based smart embedded software firm with 320 people, and Mindtribe, a San Francisco-based hardware engineering firm with 40 people.
The division in May added Callisto, a digital manufacturing services specialist with 160 people across Canada, the US, UK, and the Netherlands.