This article was originally posted as a 3-part LinkedIn series, and is recreated here as a single blog.
Lithgow Arms was sitting on millions of dollars’ worth of civilian rifles. Production kept running, inventory kept building, and the civilian rifle business was making zero profit while being propped up by other areas of the business.
The problem was easy to identify, but the solution wasn’t.
The Numbers Looked Bad, But the Story Was Worse
Lithgow Arms had a problem that looked simple on paper. Their civilian rifles weren’t selling at production pace. Stock kept building. The entire civilian rifle line was being supported by revenue from other contracts, products and services.
Everyone could see what was broken. What they couldn’t see was why.
The visible issues were real enough: misaligned production, outdated pricing, and dealers who weren’t pushing Lithgow rifles to customers. These were all symptoms of something structural that no one had identified yet.
The real problem was operational, not promotional.
What Everyone Assumed vs. What I Actually Found
Leadership believed civilian demand had dropped, competition was fierce, and prices needed to stay low to move units. There was also a concern that the distributor wasn’t doing enough to support the brand.
What I discovered was that dealers had no way to see what Lithgow had in stock.
The company’s single distributor was ordering reactively; taking dealer orders first, then ordering from stock held with Lithgow. When dealers logged into the distributor’s portal, they saw “out of stock” on most variants, assumed Lithgow couldn’t deliver, and sold different brands instead.
Meanwhile, Lithgow’s factory held thousands of finished rifles across dozens of variants.
The disconnect between what existed and what dealers thought they could sell was quietly strangling revenue.
Customers still wanted Lithgow rifles, but dealers couldn’t risk promising a product they couldn’t see in stock.
The Fix: Data, Discipline, and Strategic Inventory
The solution was operational alignment.
First, I went to the data. Seven years of sales and manufacturing records showed exactly which calibres, finishes, and configurations moved fastest. The production line was making too many slow movers and not enough of what dealers actually ordered. I worked with the production team to align consumer demand with the variants being produced, before we tackled the larger problem.
Next, I proposed a new stock holding strategy to the distributor. Instead of reactive ordering, I implemented minimum stock levels; six weeks of inventory across all variants, over 300 rifles at any given time. I used min/max thresholds to ensure the distributor held buffer stock based on real demand patterns, not guesswork, and every week I simply told them what they needed to order to stay ahead of the curve.
I also had to deal with years of accumulated slow-moving stock. Instead of discounting, I developed a promotion that paired Australian-made rifles with an exclusive Australian-made shooting mat. The distributor managed delivery while I handled the redemption program directly with end customers.
This cleared legacy inventory without cheapening the brand or setting a precedent for price cuts.
What Changed When the System Actually Worked
Within 12 months, civilian rifle sales surged 275% year-on-year in units sold. In reality, the effect of increased scrutiny on stock holdings was instantaneous and continued unabated throughout that period and beyond.
Dealers stopped second-guessing whether they would get access to the right variant for their customer. They could see stock in the system, promise delivery dates, and close sales instead of redirecting customers to competitors.
The civilian rifle line transitioned from a cost center to a contributor.
The pricing corrections I implemented ensured the business model was sustainable without relying on other revenue streams. It wasn’t possible to address the pricing component in one hit, so it was addressed over a period of time. During this same period, we introduced the Signature Series rifles and were quietly working in the background on a range of other products for the premium price points Lithgow Arms sat within.
The promotion cleared slow-moving variants without diluting brand value. Customers got premium Australian-made products, dealers moved inventory, stock levels were finally within the target range while production planning was reset around actual demand.
It required operational discipline and alignment between production, distribution, and point-of-sale reality.
Why Most Businesses Miss This
When sales stall, most companies look at marketing, messaging, or pricing first. They assume the problem is external — competition, market conditions, or customer behaviour.
But often, the real bottleneck sits in the gaps between functions. What was missing was visibility, communication and execution.
Customers wanted to be able to buy a Lithgow Arms rifle, but not if it meant waiting an unspecified length of time, while the dealers just wanted to have confidence in a steady supply of products.
We had a situation where Sales wasn’t providing guidance to Ops on what they should be producing, while Ops had no oversight on what firearms dealers could actually sell. The distributor was in reactive mode, driven by orders coming in, rather than actual market demand.
The fix was achieved through data-driven alignment across internal and external stakeholders, as well as operational discipline. At no point did we alter the marketing strategy; we simply addressed the operational issues.
The Bigger Picture
You don’t need to be in the firearms industry to have this problem. You just need a business where one part of the system assumes the other parts are working. Until somebody looks at the whole landscape, your issues are segmented or in silos.
When internal operations, distribution partners, and front-line sellers operate on different information, revenue dies in the gaps.
These problems are fixable, if you’re willing to look beyond the obvious.
Most operational bottlenecks lie hidden until someone asks the right questions at every level of the system.
Our Operations Health Check shows exactly where your systems connect and where they break down—clear visibility on what’s aligned, what’s missing, and what to fix first.
Author Note: This case study reflects work completed by Ewan Williams in his prior role as Global Sales Manager at Lithgow Arms (Thales Australia). Refracted Aspect was not involved in the delivery of this work, but the lessons learned continue to inform our consulting approach today.
