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Factory Relocation Timeline: What To Expect When Making The Move

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Global Logistics, Global Trade Daily, Warehousing

Factory Relocation Timeline: What To Expect When Making The Move

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Factory relocation may be necessary to increase available workspace, account for business growth or align with long-term business plans. While there’s no one-size-fits-all way to get from point A to point B, businesses can benefit by using a factory relocation timeline that includes common checkpoints to streamline the process.

Preparing for Relocation

The first step of any factory relocation is planning. While it may be tempting to start the move as soon as new factory construction is complete or pre-existing building purchases are made, beginning without a plan can lead to supply chain disruptions, inventory management errors or damage to essential equipment.

Instead, start by defining how much you expect to spend and how long you want relocation to take. Understand that both of these values are subject to change but are worth defining to establish a ballpark. 

Next, make sure you obtain all necessary permits and documentation required to move equipment cross-city, across the state or across the nation. In addition, create a comprehensive list of all machinery and parts that will be making the move. Finally, disassemble and label all machine parts. While this requires more time upfront, it streamlines the reassembly process.

Transporting Critical Machinery

With planning complete, the next step is defining a clear logistics strategy. This includes contracting experienced heavy machinery moving providers capable of specialized equipment transportation that accounts for optimal routes to reduce the risk of equipment damage or loss.

Transport itself comes next. Reputable providers are key to ensuring equipment safety, but it’s also important to have in-house staff on hand to supervise the loading and unloading of equipment. Before partnering with any transportation firm, businesses should ask about their transport process — what type of vehicles do they have available? What processes are in place if a problem arises? Is temporary storage an option if factories aren’t quite ready?

Once machinery arrives at the new location, carry out a walkthrough to ensure necessary utilities and infrastructure are in place. Then, work with your transport provider to reassemble and install machinery.

Getting Up and Running

With equipment moved and reassembled, the next step is testing. Turn on and run all machinery to ensure it works as expected and verify functionality with more in-depth testing. Once this is complete, take the time to fine-tune machinery and ensure optimal productivity. For example, cities at different altitudes have different air pressures, which can impact machine functions.

As companies begin to restart operations, employee training sessions are essential to ensure productivity. While machinery may remain the same, locations within new factories may be different than those of old buildings — staff need to learn new layouts before they can deliver optimal productivity.

The last step in your relocation timeline? Final checks and feedback. Maintenance teams should carry out in-depth checks of all machinery and systems to pinpoint and address any potential errors. Consider a machine that had one part replaced inaccurately. While the machine still works, its safety is compromised. Left unchecked, it could cause serious harm. Final checks help find and resolve these issues before they become big problems.

Feedback, meanwhile, comes from both front-line staff and stakeholders. Front-line staff understand the impact and efficiency of operations on the floor, giving them valuable insight to help maximize process efficiency. Stakeholders, meanwhile, may be able to recommend ways to optimize operations without going over budget.

Staying the Course

Factory relocations are complex, time-consuming and have a habit of going over budget. While it’s impossible to account for and avoid every relocation risk, businesses are better prepared to stay the course with a comprehensive factory relocation timeline that prioritizes planning, pinpoints transportation needs and improves operations with testing, training and feedback.

Author Bio

Kelly Zurawski is a Part Owner of Equip Trucking & Warehousing, LLC, which transports heavy equipment, industrial machinery, metalworking machinery, and much more. She has a master’s degree in leadership development. Her brother and husband are also Part Owners. The family’s passion for heavy equipment moving began with Zurawski’s grandfather and father, who also worked in the industry.

 

manufacturing
3pls, Archives, Global Trade Daily

How You Can Avoid Problems When Manufacturing to China

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If you haven’t worked with a Chinese manufacturer before but are intending to start now, this article is for you. From the onset, we must inform you that you are in for a lot of positive gains, but you need to be ready for occasional production problems. One day you are panicking after a factory delays your products, the other day you are petitioning a manufacturer for refusing to rework substandard goods and another time you are running after a supplier who walked out on you without prior warning. Don’t get us wrong: There are many good manufacturers in China, but there is no harm in being cautious.

To set up a company in China, you must know and avoid the pitfalls that rogue manufacturers have led many foreign companies into. Remember that when it gets to product development, you have your own customers waiting for your deliveries, so you need a manufacturer who delivers quality products and in a timely manner. That being said, which mistakes must you avoid when manufacturing in China? How do you avoid them?

1. Entrusting manufacturers with your business interests

Trust is vital in business, but you must not trust anyone with your business interests. Do not forget that learning some words and phrases is crucial at the point so that you could do some basic communication. For more complex communication, a company that provides Chinese translation services needs to be hired so that no misunderstanding happens. When working with a Chinese manufacturer, avoid the mistake of allowing the manufacturer to control the quality of your products or the delivery time. Many entrepreneurs have made the mistake of sticking around even after realizing that a manufacturer or supplier is incompetent, probably because they are afraid to lose their pre-paid deposits. Tell you what; you would rather walk away and lose a small deposit than stick around and end up with substandard goods that will ruin your existing reputation.

Also, a small deposit may not be worth the frustrations that you will cause your customers by keeping them out of supply for long.

Another way of protecting your interests when dealing with a Chinese manufacturer is to always have an inspector or an agent on-site, constantly updating you on every stage of your product development process. A Chinese recruitment agency can help you find and recruit a reputable agent for that role. If the manufacturer tries any underhand strategies, you can easily stop them in their tracks. You will always be a step ahead of them.

2. Prioritizing fast delivery over quality

For what it is worth, quality must always come before delivery speed for as far as product development is concerned. Product development requires tons of time and effort to be successful. And because your customers want top-quality products, you must not compromise quality for anything. The challenge that is unique to China, however, is that when you pressurize the manufacturer too much, they may not tell you outright. Instead, they will lower the manufacturing standards so as to avoid possible delays.

On the other hand, there are reported cases of Chinese manufacturers’ hiking production costs upon realizing how much value you’ve attached to the quality of your product.

How, then, do you find a workable balance? Again, sending a local agent to supervise the manufacturing process would be a great option for you. Because the agent understands the Chinese business culture and language perfectly, he/she will know how to send your message across without scaring away good manufacturers and/or falling into the trap of quack manufacturers who hike production costs for no apparent reasons.

3. Relying too much on a manufacturer’s past reputation

Previous success can be used to gauge the performance of a manufacturer in the west, but not necessarily in the east. Chinese companies with reasonably good reputations have in the past frustrated many foreign investors, sometimes to the point of collapsing entire investments. Don’t make the mistake of trusting a manufacturer based on your past experiences with them; always be on high alert knowing that they can disappoint you at any moment.

The fact that a Chinese manufacturer hasn’t failed you yet isn’t a guarantee that they will not unexpectedly drop their manufacturing quality and damage your reputation.

There are many manufacturers in China today who are holding onto projects such as yours as their only means of survival. If you allow them the chance to rebuild using your money, they will fancy their chances without looking back. There are also manufacturers who are protected by government bureaucrats, so they don’t care too much about their reputation with foreign businesses. They will mess you up and continue with their daily operations as if nothing happened. You must, therefore, never drop your guard: Always be hands-on and control the behavior of your Chinese manufacturer.