Helping defense suppliers stay qualified — on ordinary days, not just assessment days.
CMMC is not the finish line. It is evidence that an operating system is working.
Meridian Industrial Partners helps Defense Industrial Base (DIB) and Marine Industrial Base (MIB) suppliers, primes, and partners get qualified, stay qualified, and keep their qualifications when ownership, contracts, or programs change.
Qualified Capacity & Meridian
Two sites. One practice.
QualifiedCapacity.com is the public site for the people doing the work — writing, case material, and the operating principles behind it. It is where you read and learn. It Takes the Whole Shop, the inaugural Qualified Capacity book, available 30 April 2026.
Meridian is the firm. When a supplier, prime, investor, or partner is ready to put the work into the shop, Meridian builds the systems, the evidence, the operating cadence, and the supply-chain discipline that hold up between audits — and stay intact when ownership, contracts, or programs change.
Qualified Capacity teaches openly. Meridian engages privately. The two sites do different jobs on purpose.
Operating Thesis
The shop floor already runs quality management systems. Information protection is the same discipline.
Treating CMMC as a one-time IT project creates controls that fall apart the day the assessor leaves. Extending the quality management system the shop already runs makes the controls part of how the shop operates — so they stay in place.
Illustrative model, not measured client data. The chart compares the operating logic of a one-time assessment-prep cycle against a maintained quality-system discipline over time.
Our Work
Three workstreams.
Three workstreams: getting qualified, building the supplier-side systems that keep you that way, and protecting that work through ownership changes, contract pressure, and team turnover. Designed to fit the workflows your shop already runs.
Who We Serve
For the people who carry this work.
DIB and MIB suppliers with FCI or CUI obligations
You need a route from contract requirements to implemented controls, current evidence, annual affirmation, and the assessment pathway that applies to your contracts.
Tier 1 primes and supplier-development teams
You need suppliers who remain usable after onboarding, after turnover, after flowdowns tighten, and after contract pressure reaches the shop floor.
Industrial founders and operators
You need to preserve the qualifications, knowledge, cadence, and relationships that make the business valuable and mission-relevant through the next stage.
Investors and acquisition entrepreneurs
You need to see the supplier's real qualification posture before capital is committed — and understand whether the operating discipline holds up through change, or whether it falls apart the first time pressure arrives.
Team
Operator-led. Senior-advised. Lean by design.
Meridian stays small on purpose. The founder runs the work. A senior advisor grounds it in industrial standards experience. Scope stays narrow so the work stays good. The public site teaches the methodology; engagement happens privately, off the public site, with the right safeguards.
David Kirubi
Founder | Industrial Operating Strategy
Industrial operator with 21+ years across global supply chains, program management, and operating change at large industrial companies and at founder-run businesses he has worked inside as an operator and as a buyer. Author of It Takes the Whole Shop (Qualified Capacity, 2026).
Lisa Salley
Senior Advisor | Industrial Quality Systems
Senior industrial operator and advisor. Deep experience running quality systems and testing, inspection, and certification (TIC) work; building manufacturing workforce programs; and shaping how large standards-driven organizations actually operate day-to-day.
Get in touch
Start with a short call.
The first call is a fit conversation: what you're working on, who's involved, what's pressing, and whether Meridian is the right partner for the work. Plan on 20–30 minutes.
Don't share anything sensitive on this first call. If the conversation continues, we set up a protected channel before contracts, drawings, supplier lists, or controlled information are exchanged.
Schedule a fit call
Public-channel guardrail: do not send CUI, FCI, controlled technical data, classified or export-controlled information, login credentials, contracts, drawings, specifications, supplier lists, or proprietary operational details through Calendly, email, or any public channel. If the conversation continues, Meridian will establish an appropriate protected channel before sensitive material is exchanged.