How To Accelerate Your Production Process When Customer Demand Increases

When demand for your product increases, it may be a reason to celebrate. However, if your production process isn’t efficient and flexible, your company won’t be able to keep up with demand. As demand rises, you can take specific steps to accelerate production and rise to the occasion. Even better, you can take to heart the following advice in advance so you’re ready when your big break happens.

Make the Process Scalable

Examine your production process to eliminate bottlenecks that prevent greater production capacity. Work to maximize the use of space, minimize machinery downtime, and reduce hours when no one is working in your facility. Taking care of these things before demand increases make it easier to scale up production when the time comes. When demand rises, consider adding an additional shift, perhaps made up of part-time employees or staffers who normally work on products that aren’t in high demand.

Automate When Possible

When you understand your workflow well, you can see what tools and personnel can be replaced by automation. Projects move through production quicker when repetitive tasks are automated. Even if you can’t afford automated machinery yet or decide that it’s inappropriate for your current needs, careful analysis allows you to avoid effort duplication and eliminate time-wasting steps.

Consider Outsourcing

Outsourcing production to a company experienced in product manufacturing services allows you to avoid new equipment purchases and keep your staff levels manageable. When you need additional capacity but don’t have the space necessary for expansion or don’t have any untapped labor in your area, outsourcing to a product manufacturing firm allows you to meet customer demand without shaking up your business.

Create a Minimum Viable Product

A stripped-down version of your product may be quicker and easier to make than a full-featured version. Consider going into production with a scaled-down or budget version to satisfy demand. Later, you can return to production of the full version of the product and offer it to users who want an upgrade. You may be able to improve your final product based on the positive or negative feedback you get from your minimum viable product.

Stay Flexible

While you may have rigid ideas of what you want your product to be and your company to stand for, open-minded flexibility allows you to respond to increases or decreases in demand easier. Staying flexible means moving slower than you might prefer and innovating to create new product versions based on consumer demand. Companies that stay in business for decades, like Apple and IBM, for example, have pivoted many times to remain competitive.

When your production is simple, flexible, scalable, as automated as possible, and takes advantage of outsourcing opportunities, it can survive and thrive as it meets variable customer demand.