How Your Manufacturing Business Can Navigate Long Wait Times For Raw Materials

How Your Manufacturing Business Can Navigate Long Wait Times For Raw Materials

The manufacturing business is in a bit of a pickle at the moment due to the global supply chain crisis. This is because businesses are waiting longer than ever in order to obtain the raw materials that they need to create finished products. This inevitably leads to failures in the pipeline, lost profits, and laid off-workers, a complete disaster for any business owner. Thankfully, there are various ways that your manufacturing business can navigate these long waiting times for raw materials and still keep operating to the best of its ability. To get a complete overview of how you can deal with these issues, it is worth reading the complete guide that has been written for your reading pleasure below. 

Use 3D Printing 

One of the simplest ways to ensure that your business has enough raw materials to convert into a product is by investing in 3D printers. While they used to be rather expensive back in the day, the price of purchasing one — even an industrial-sized 3D printer — has now come down significantly. Now people can even print houses for just a few thousand dollars! By using a 3D printer for certain products, you might find that you are able to bypass the production chain entirely, meaning more time to focus on the manufacturing and delivery parts of your business. 

Use Smarter Routes 

When you are hiring drivers to pick up your materials from ports, which are currently running 24/7 on the West Coast to meet demand, it is important to make sure that they are well-trained, know their routes inside and out, and are committed to meeting any demand that you have. If you believe that they are simply not qualified to meet their commitments, then there is no shame in finding drivers who will be able to adequately meet your expectations. 

Thankfully for you, there are a whole host of tools available for you to find the best drivers to get your raw materials to your manufacturing site. If you post shipping jobs online, you will be able to find the perfect delivery route online that a driver will only be happy to navigate for you. 

Build up a Surplus 

While in normal times, it is better to only have the materials you need to meet demand — best known as lean manufacturing — businesses are not living in normal times. In fact, they are navigating unprecedented times. This means that if you want to make sure that you can meet demand over a longer period of time, it might actually be a better idea to order more materials than you need. This means that if you experience further delays — especially as many experts consider the global supply chain crisis to persist until 2023 — you will still be able to create enough products despite these issues that you might currently be going through, which can help your business survive this tough time and perhaps even thrive when many others are faltering.