I often meet with industry professionals to discuss their businesses and the challenges they face. Their roles range from engineering and operations to continuous improvement to environmental health and safety. Although their challenges are unique, one thing remains constant: business is booming in manufacturing and distribution. Many are seeing revenues increase as much as 35-45% year-over-year. While that’s a great problem to have, it can be difficult to navigate that large of an increase in demand, and how you solve those challenges will directly lead to the success of your operation.

The pressure is on

When you have sustained rapid growth, there are several operational and financial impacts. A few of the challenges I often hear from customers include the following:

• We need to add manufacturing/distribution capacity to meet growth rates and new contractual obligations, but we don’t have the floor space. However, we do have plenty of vertical space that is underutilized.
• We must be more productive and efficient in terms of improving our process and reducing our labor costs. That will allow for a reallocation of valuable skilled resources to important value-added activities.
• Due to the nature of our business, we need to comply with industry regulatory standards, making it necessary to store our raw materials, WIP, and finished goods in a secure location. We also need the ability to have stringent tracking and traceability throughout our process.
• Our worker injury claims causing a massive shortage in labor due to on-the-job accidents and an unsafe environment. We’re looking to improve the situation by eliminating the use of ladders, bending, reaching, and other high-risk equipment.
• We’re experiencing issues with order picking. This is mainly due to the seasonal business and temporary labor needed to get the volume of orders fulfilled on time.

Many of these surface issues and challenges are common in industries such as manufacturing, aerospace, electronics, medical device, pharmaceutical, and life sciences.

What you don’t know could be costing you money

What are some of the deeper driving forces, financial implications, and resulting costs if nothing is changed to remedy the critical issues at hand?

• Unexpected expenses
• Missed deadlines
• Loss of market share
• Profitability and revenue growth
• Customer or client retention

Survive or thrive

We understand not all operations are the same. Many business processes are unique based on the industry, service, or product your company manufactures. If you’re experiencing any of these challenges or implications, a Kardex Remstar automated storage and retrieval system (ASRS) may be an excellent fit for your operation. The ASRS helps solve many of the most common challenges your operation deals with. If you’re unfamiliar with this ASRS, we’d love for you to see what it looks like when it’s implemented.

Download our case study and learn how a global manufacturer doubled their storage density and increased picking speed and accuracy by implementing ASRS.