When you’re looking to manufacture, whether it’s your own products or to provide manufacturing services to others, then establishing the right manufacturing plant, factory floor, or industrial setup is key.
The question of how you meet all of your needs is going to require you to go into a lot more detail than we can, here, but we start by looking at some of the basic needs, and what you need to start thinking of to ensure that you meet them.
A clear aim and vision
If you want to make sure that your factory doesn’t fall and fail at the first hurdle, then you have to have a clear vision for its future. Beyond a general outline of what the factory is there for, you need to think about the factory’s purpose.
Who does it serve? If it’s making your own products, how do you do that as cost-effectively as possible? If it’s for clients to use your manufacturing services, what can it offer theme in particular? A clear manufacturing business plan can make a big difference.
The right premises or land for the factory
A good location for your manufacturing facility is going to be one of the most important decisions that you can make, and so many of its other successes and failures will be built on top of this. You need to consider things like how it fits into the supply chain, if it’s accessible to suppliers, your own logistics team, and your employees.
There are different sectors and industries within the manufacturing umbrella and depending on those, your location and factory might have to meet certain characteristics. This can include things like how much it costs to set up in different locations, or how much you need to consider your environmental impact based on whether you set up in a city or out in the country.
To buy or build?The location you choose may be limited by how you choose to set up your manufacturing premises, in the first place. You can find entire manufacturing businesses for sale, which at the very least will include the industrial site but may, in some cases, also include the machinery, tech, and other resources needed to get up and running.
You can do that or you can work with a team to build the space that you need. Not only might it be easier to create a space that better meets the plant layouts and design that you have to ensure that you’re able to take care of all processes, but you might also be able to choose locations better suited to your needs than are already available on the market.
Your machinery
This step should be considered in tandem with choosing the right location and establishing how you’re going to set up your premises, not after the fact. Manufacturing businesses can use a very wide range of machinery, and you need to find the right types of machinery to meet the processes needed to provide the services or build the products that you have in mind.
Aside from what machinery you need, you also have to consider things like spare parts you need to keep, as well as maintenance schedules you have to start establishing. On top of that, start planning the layout of your machines, setting them up for maximum efficiency, especially in the case of work flowing from one machine to the next.
Considering automation
When you’re thinking about the various processes that need to be completed on the factory floor, then the question of automation is going to come up at some point. There’s machinery of all kinds that you can get automated versions of, such as arm robots (single or double), coordinative robots, multi-axis robots, and more.
Automating your manufacturing floor does come with an additional higher cost, and it also means that you need to hire more qualified staff, as automation technicians tend to have more training and a higher wage than your average factory worker.
However, for many businesses, cutting the possibility of human error by several degrees, not to mention the costs of having to hire more people, can be worth it.
Meeting your power needs
Running all of those machines is going to require a lot of power. Industrial businesses like manufacturing floors use a lot more energy than the typical business and, as such, they have to think a lot more about where that energy is going to come from. While many office-based businesses are able to rely on the grid entirely, this might not always be possible for manufacturing.
For one, the costs of using the grid can get exponentially higher the more you use it, and manufacturing businesses may need more control over their power source, such as with the help of Tier 4 Generators. There are other options, such as renewable energy sources, that can be added to that to provide some backup, as well.
