It seems to me you have the makings of a good partnership and i have read your comments and it does look like you are committed. In my opinion you could shift to looking at how your customers view your business and working backwards. It might be that your answers are to be less self obsessed and more customer obsessed. Not saying you are not doing this already but in my view the hierarchy for a business prioritises the customer first and works backwards. Issues in your partnership can then be weighed against this mission. Good luck.
In this context for me it was the fundamentals that I needed to have in order to have meaningful conversations about capacities, production bottle-necks and optimisation without making the conversation a tutoring session for me.