CLEVELAND — Consultants retained last spring to identify savings at Midland Consolidated Freight delivered their findings Tuesday in a 400-page report titled “Fewer Consultants,” which advises the company to stop paying the consultants who produced it, following an orderly transition period of no fewer than three more years.

The engagement, which cost the firm an estimated $14.2 million, concluded after eleven months of interviews, workshops, and what the report calls “a robust synthesis of stakeholder anxiety.”

“The data were unambiguous,” said Dr. Priyanka Valdenhoeven-Marsh, a senior principal at Halcyon Brandt Lindqvist Partners and former Associate Director of Strategic Redundancy Mapping. “Midland has too many consultants. Our analysis shows that, at current levels, there is roughly one consultant for every decision, and in some departments one consultant for every consultant.”

The report’s executive summary, which runs 61 pages, recommends a “phased, consultant-led sunset” of all outside advisory contracts. Phase One calls for a 14-month assessment of how to begin the sunset. Phase Two, “Enablement,” would see Halcyon Brandt train Midland employees to do the things Halcyon Brandt currently does, a process the report estimates will require ongoing Halcyon Brandt involvement until at least 2028.

Midland executives said they were impressed by the thoroughness of the document, which includes 212 charts, one of which depicts the other charts.

“We asked them to cut costs, and they came back with a plan to cut their own jobs,” said Midland Chief Efficiency Officer Dale Pruitt, visibly moved. “That kind of integrity is rare. It’s why we’ve hired them to oversee the cutting.”

A follow-on contract, valued at $22 million, was signed Wednesday morning to manage implementation of the recommendation. A second firm was brought in that afternoon to audit the first firm’s implementation.

“Frankly, we were surprised the client read past the title.”

Critics have noted that the report’s central finding appears to contradict the existence of the report. Valdenhoeven-Marsh dismissed the concern, calling it “a classic false paradox” and explaining that the engagement was “a necessary one-time consultant expenditure to end consultant expenditures,” a category she said Halcyon Brandt has used on 340 previous clients.

Appendix F, titled “Risks,” identifies only one: that Midland might act on the recommendations too quickly. To mitigate this, the report proposes a standing Steering Committee on Pace, to be staffed by six Halcyon Brandt associates and meet monthly at a rate of $1,800 per hour.

At press time, Midland had accepted the report, thanked the team for its candor, and scheduled a kickoff meeting to discuss next steps for the next steps. The team has already drafted a proposal for a sequel, tentatively titled “Even Fewer Consultants: Lessons Learned.”