Your demands rarely remain the same from year to year, or even from month to month. Welding contractors must be flexible to your business’s needs to support your production schedule. You risk missed sales opportunities when your supplier can’t keep up.

If you need parts manufactured at the last minute, or if you need to increase your order volumes, the right supplier is prepared wit

h efficient processes to fulfill your request. In part two of this three-part blog series, learn what rules a responsive metal manufacturer follows to meet your demand.

3. Use Lean Manufacturing Principles

In addition to offering cost-efficient manufacturing processes fine-tuned through audits and reviews, your supplier should be an expert at lean manufacturing. This strategy aims to maximize the value your metal manufacturer offers while minimizing waste.

To accomplish this goal, welding contractors shift the focus away from technologies, assets and departments to optimize the flow of products and services. Suppliers aim to reduce:

• Human effort
• Required floor space
• Capital needs
• Manufacturing time needed

The end result for your OEM is lower manufacturing costs, on-time deliveries and higher-value metal parts.

4. Encourage Open Communication

In any supplier relationship, transparency and communication are vital. Your welding contractor is better equipped to meet deadlines when its representatives speak to contacts at your company and learn about your current needs and projected demand.

As an added benefit, close-knit contact between you and your supplier enables you to ask detailed questions and get answers without wasting any time. Suppliers should also be fully transparent with you when hitting certain deadlines isn’t possible or process adjustments need to be made.

5. Always Deliver On Time

While the previous tenets demonstrate ways that a supplier can respond to OEM needs, on-time delivery is more of a proof that your metal manufacturer is flexible. No matter what adjustments you and your supplier agree upon, it should deliver your metal parts and fabrications on an appropriate schedule.

Receiving your orders on time demonstrates that your welding contractor uses streamlined metal manufacturing processes and plans its production schedule with room for change. Combined with efficient loading and unloading during shipping, these solutions show that your supplier is continuously working to meet your deadlines.

6. Maintain Expansive Floor Space And Equipment Options

Without enough floor space, your welding contractor will have difficulty supporting cost-efficient metal manufacturing processes. Suppliers need the ability to move equipment around and rearrange their production line to meet client requests in a streamlined fashion.

Having the right equipment is essential for manufacturing metal parts and assemblies with high-quality standards. For example, your supplier may use CNC robotics equipment to ensure a more precise weld. Most importantly, you should look for a contract manufacturer with a wide range of equipment options to suit all of your metal manufacturing needs.

7. Offer A Diverse Range Of Services

In addition to metal manufacturing services such as industrial fabrication, welding, custom machining, finishing and assembly, your supplier should offer the following services beyond production processes:

• Technology
• Material requirements planning
• Procurement
• Inventory monitoring
• Accumulation
• Replenishment

A responsive supplier is not just a source for metal fabrications, but also a business partner focused on helping you improve your operations and grow revenue. You need its strategic expertise just as much as the manufacturing services it offers. Read the upcoming final installment of this blog series to learn how other tenets of flexible suppliers facilitate your streamlined production schedule.