60%
Stock model
Bourbon Fabi — established the model to take 60% out of stock while the ERP went live and the supply base was rationalised.
Product Structure & BOM Manager/Sherborne, England
See the structure before you act.
The finished object looks whole. Pull it apart — every part, every supplier, every line on the bill — and the work can be held. Leave the structure hidden and the programme is guessing before it moves.
35+
Years of experience
20+
Operating companies
£15m
Purchasing book, Bosch
Hinkley Point C
Nuclear construction
Philosophy
How I work
I am passionate about high-performing supply chains that meet the demand of the site and still keep cost under control. Supplier knowledge, commercial grip and the willingness to sit in the difficult issues — that is how milestones are actually hit.
John Darkins
01
Structure first
If the product structure is wrong, every schedule, every PO and every stock figure is theatre. Get the BOM true, then manage the rest.
02
Suppliers as a system
Key suppliers are not a list. They are a risk register, a cash position and a relationship. Issues are found early and closed in the open.
03
Commercial oversight
Contracts exist to move the programme. Streamlined commercial control on the issues that actually delay delivery — not paperwork for its own sake.
04
Measurable movement
Stock down. Cost down. Schedule fill up. If it cannot be shown, it did not happen. Collaboration is the method; the number is the proof.
Approach
Every complex process is already solved — for the person who knows the right algorithm.
That is what advisory is.
Still scrambled.
The right move is coming.
The page
Each keystroke stays. Planning, purchasing and the site then live by the same page. Advisory is typing that structure true — not a deck of options.
The page is still blank.
Expertise
What I do
The jobs John has actually been paid to finish — written as the work, not as slogans.
- 01
Product structure & BOM
Architecture of the bill of materials so planning, purchasing and the site are looking at the same object. The current brief at Bauer Media Outdoor UK.
- 02
Supplier management
Identify and close issues on key suppliers. Development programmes, recovery missions, joint ventures when the supplier itself is the risk.
- 03
Inventory & MRP
Set the parameters, install the schedule, take stock out of the building without taking service with it. Models that have delivered 60–80% reductions.
- 04
Commercial oversight
Contracts written to enhance delivery. Cost engineering, TAC, supplier viability, and the unglamorous work of keeping claims from becoming the project.
- 05
Programme supply chain
Nuclear construction, military aviation, sequenced automotive, low-volume electronics. Multi-disciplinary environments where one late part is a milestone.
- 06
Turnaround & systems
Interim purchasing resets, ERP go-lives, 3PL brought in-house, Oracle and SAP implementations that match how the business actually runs.
Proof
Stamped, not claimed.
80%
Physical stock
Brose — SAP in, 3PL closed, inventory brought home. Physical stock reduced by 80% while the management line was rebuilt.
£700k
Hidden cost found
Decoma — a bespoke costing system that measured what the plant had never seen, and put an extra £700k on the revenue line.
40–75%
Core cost down
Bosch — £15m spend, corporate leverage used properly, long-term TAC deals on core product rather than one-off raids.
43→103%
Line efficiency
Key Plastics — planning and costing tools replaced the business system. Production efficiency moved from 43% to 103%.
320t
Moved across Europe
Airbus — supply chains for the two largest autoclaves ever to cross the continent, 320 and 300 tonnes, out of Korea.
Career
Professional background
Experience
2026 — Present
Product Structure & BOM Manager
Bauer Media Outdoor UK
Owns product structure and the bill of materials for outdoor media operations — the spine that purchasing, planning and delivery have to share.
Mar 2024 — Jul 2026
Supply Chain Manager
Framatome · Hinkley Point C
Supplier management, inventory optimisation and operational excellence on a nuclear construction programme that cannot afford opacity.
Jun 2023 — Jun 2024
Commercial Manager
Gardiner & Theobald LLP
Commercial management in a consultancy that lives on programme control — contracts and cost used as delivery tools.
Feb 2021 — Feb 2022
Supply Chain Manager
GKN Aerospace
Aerospace supply chain in Portsmouth. Structure, suppliers and the rhythm of a high-complexity plant.
Sep 2018 — Feb 2021
BOM Manager, APM & supply chain
BAE Systems
Bills of materials, APM and supply-chain support inside a defence prime. Structure good enough for a warship, not a workshop rumour.
Sep 2016 — Aug 2018
Sub Contract Manager
Leonardo
Sub-contract management for a defence and aerospace house — vendors held to the programme.
Aug 2012 — Jan 2016
UK Logistics Director
SMR Automotive Mirrors UK
UK logistics for one of the world’s largest makers of exterior rear-view mirrors.
Dec 2004 — Nov 2007
Supply Chain Manager
Bosch Communication Systems
High-complexity, low-volume electronics. 28,000 live components. £15m spend. Cost-down 40–75% on core product.
Theatres of work
Nuclear
Construction programmes
Framatome · Gardiner & Theobald
Hinkley Point C — supplier, inventory and commercial control.
Aerospace & defence
High-complexity plants
GKN · BAE Systems · Leonardo · Northrop Grumman · Draken
BOM, APM, project procurement and sub-contract.
Automotive
Volume and launch
JLR · SMR · Bentley · Brose · Key Plastics
Logistics direction, launch, stock models and line efficiency.
Electronics & industrial
Cost and turnaround
Bosch · Rotork · Bourbon Fabi · Airbus
£15m books, ERP cutovers, 60–80% stock programmes.
Sectors held
Product structure & BOMSupplier recoveryInventory & MRPCommercial / contractsNuclear constructionAerospace & defenceAutomotiveElectronics
A working partnership
If the chain is the problem,
A short note. John reads it as he would a supplier brief — what is late, what is unclear, what has to move.
Professional advice, kept confidential.