Taking Manufacturing Into Your Own Hands
If you’re considering bringing manufacturing in house, you could be on to something good! Before we start considering whether you should take manufacturing into your own hands or not, it’s important to define what manufacturing is. Put simply, manufacturing is a process that takes raw materials, components, or ingredients and combines them or pieces them together to create a final product that you can sell. There are countless manufacturing process out there, but some of the most common techniques used in manufacturing tend to include:
Sewing
Machining
Molding
Vacuum forming
Outsourcing vs. In-House
First, you need to determine whether it’s time for your business to bring manufacturing in the house or not. Sure, this is an exciting step. But take it too soon and your business could face some difficulties. Most importantly, you need to consider the cost. Whether bringing manufacturing in-house is feasible for you will depend on whether your business will benefit from the cost aspect of things. If you are a complete start-up, outsourcing is likely to be much cheaper. After all, you’ll likely still be testing the waters of what products work for you and your brand, so don’t want to have to invest in brand new machinery each time you change your mind. If your business is better established and you know what products you sell and are going to stick to your business model, you are likely to find in house manufacturing cheaper, as you won’t have the costs of a third party to take into account.
Getting Started
If you do decide to go ahead and bring your manufacturing in-house, here are a few steps you will need to take to make a success of things.
Finding a Premises
First, you will need to find a premises. This will give you a space to operate from. Generally, manufacturing operations will take place in a factory of some sort.
Getting Your Equipment
Once you’ve found your premises, it’s time to start investing in the equipment you’ll need to actually manufacture your goods. Don’t rush this process. You need to make sure you get the exact right equipment for your needs. You may also need to take care of things like spraying your equipment in the right colours with Residential & Commercial Coatings. Look into different options for the most cost-effective method of purchasing your equipment. Some companies lease equipment they’ll only be used for a short time. Some finance the purchase of equipment that they know they will get regular use out of. There are plenty of options out there, so take a look at them all before diving in and buying or agreeing to anything.
Training Your Staff
No matter what equipment you buy, you’re going to need staff to operate it. So, you’re going to have to make sure you invest plenty of time into researching what qualifications and training staff need to use the equipment safely and responsibly, as well as putting time into recruiting staff that tick all of these boxes.
We were fortunate that when we started MIKOL, we all came from a manufacturing background and already had a steady flow of construction projects to supply. And having inhouse manufacturing really separated us from the competition. Our team was able to offer customizations on products as well as work with other companies on product development. However, if we didn't have the initial setup, the cost involved would be very high and risky. Therefore, outsourcing and utilizing a third party to produce items would have been a better method starting off in our opinion.
So, there you have it! When you’ve weighed up the pros and cons, the above steps should help you to make manufacturing a standard part of your business’ processes!
