State of Manufacturing®

How do you see the next 12 to 18 months compared to the last year or so?

The last couple years for us were very strong. We had a hard time keeping up with demand. Now this year and going forward, we’ve had to work a lot harder to maintain our sales and volume going out the door to our customers. We are doing more promotions, as people are looking for sales and discounts with inflation dollars being tight.

How do you plan for two or three years out in this kind of a world?

We might be adding some square footage, but on a smaller scale than we would’ve a year ago when some bigger plans were made. Some of those plans have definitely been put on hold. It’s also important to stay close to your customers right now because things are changing so quickly. It might not always be a low demand like it is right now so staying on the same page is important for when that demand picks up.

Ten years ago, people thought some kinds of automation were sometimes a threat. Are your employees embracing it differently today?

When we brought the cobot in, it was amazing how many people wanted to come over and see it, watch it. There was no threat whatsoever.

How have you changed your hiring or onboarding process to try and have a higher retention rate?

One of the things we’ve spent a lot of time on is retention. And what we found is to constantly touch base with new employees, even existing employees. That communication, that feedback, it can be really successful with seeing improvements, retention, etc.

We talked a lot about people, we talked about supply chain, we talked about how business is. What’s your heartburn issue as you think about the next year?

Retaining [people] is on our mind, but also just wondering if we can sustain this growth with inflation and all these rising prices. Some people say yes, some people say no. The failure rate in large industries is high. So, it’s making sure that we’re doing the right things to stay in the business.

How has forecasting changed?

Look at how things have progressed the last two years, we can have anywhere from 10% to 50% growth at any period of time. How do you predict what it’s going to be like in 2023? Is the economy going to stay the same? That one commodity you buy or that one part you buy could disrupt the whole chain. How much risk do we take to pre-buy that material? How much should we put on our shelves, both raw materials and finished goods? It’s a guessing game — month to month, week to week.