Growth in the economy and an increase in demand – especially a sudden one – always brings two things to the table. For small businesses, economic growth presents the perfect opportunity for the business to grow. On the other hand, that same growth in demand also brings a number of challenges, especially to a business’s production workflow.
In order to cope with the increasing demand, a business must be flexible enough to be able to increase its production capacity. For those who are outsourcing their productions, this may not be a difficult problem to overcome. However, businesses with in-house production lines often run into issues as they try to expand. These next few tips will help your business overcome these challenges in no time.
Scale Gradually
One of the most common mistakes a business can make – especially a small or home business – when trying to optimise and expand their production workflow is investing too quickly. While it is a great idea to increase production capacity to meet the increasing demand, that expansion is best done gradually.
Instead of investing in larger machineries or hiring more workers immediately, try to find parts of the production process that can be optimised. Investing in a better palletising system, for instance, is often enough to boost production capacity by a substantial margin.
Sometimes, a large investment may not be necessary. By tweaking the speed of your existing production line or optimising different processes along the way, you can actually optimise the production workflow by as much as 80%. Optimisation will not only save you money, it will also allow you to meet the increasing demand much faster.
Invest in the Right Elements
Another common mistake a lot of businesses still make when optimising their production lines is making a lot of replacements. It is easy to replace old machines with machines that can produce more goods, but the move will cost a lot of money and doesn’t always produce the best results or return on investment.
Be smart about the investments you make. You can, for instance, switch to robotic food palletising instead of a manual system to help boost production numbers. You can also rely on automation and robotic systems from companies like CKF Systems to help optimise different parts of the production process.
These may seem like small optimisations at first – and they don’t cost a lot of money at all – but they can prove to be substantial once implemented. The optimisations are also much easier to manage; that brings us to our next tip, which is….
Keep an Eye on Your Overheads
Last but certainly not least, always keep an eye on your overhead costs. Bigger machines and an expanded production line often come with higher running costs. The higher your overheads are, the less competitive you will be on the market; this is not the kind of disadvantage you want in today’s market.
This is why gradual scaling and optimising is the solution to look into. You can keep your overhead costs in check, remain competitive and still have the increased production capacity to cope with growing demands for your products. Combined with the previous tips we’ve talked about in this article, you will have no trouble at all optimising your production line to its maximum capacity.
