Manufacturers face unique business challenges at both the local level and in a global context. Whether you’re planning to build a new industrial complex or scale your business, it’s important to understand top manufacturing challenges and how to mitigate issues specific to your operations.
Manufacturers can face obstacles that impair growth, slow production times, or impact the sale of goods. While some challenges result from decisions made by management, others are related to capacity restraints or other physical limitations. Your business can sometimes solve its top manufacturing challenges through a creative approach to building strategy.
At JB Donaldson, we’re always on the lookout to help our clients solve issues through innovative building solutions. Working together, we’ll help improve your build project’s efficiency while maintaining the quality you’ve come to expect from our team. Here are some of the top manufacturing challenges your business might face in 2025.
Macro-Economic Pressure
Starting with the bigger picture, U.S. manufacturers face a wide range of economic challenges that can significantly impact the success of their business. Within this category, business owners face everything from inflation, tariffs, and political shifts to interest rates, economic trends, and supply chain disruptions.
While there is little an individual manufacturer can do to impact the larger economic pressures, it’s critical to understand how they can affect your business in the near and long term.
Say you’re running a furniture manufacturing facility in Michigan, for example. If you anticipate supply chain issues in the coming months, you may need to boost production while you can still access the raw materials you need. With higher production, you’ll need to keep higher-than-usual inventory levels to help meet future demand for your products. This way, having enough storage room for inventory can help you smooth over one of the macroeconomic challenges.
Labor Issues
Labor issues continue to plague the manufacturing sector. While worker shortages challenged most sectors of the economy during the pandemic, the ability to find and retain skilled labor remains one of the top manufacturing challenges in the United States.
There are several reasons behind this shortage, including an aging workforce, a lack of appropriately trained employees, and a willingness among employees to leave a company for a more competitive wage at another firm.
While an aging workforce is hard to defend against, there are several ways for manufacturers to boost the retention of skilled employees. Many invest in technical training to help skilled workers earn higher wages and advance their careers.
For many manufacturing employees, worker safety is at the top of their minds. Manufacturers who value workplace safety and invest in safety training and equipment are more likely to retain their skilled workforce. Similarly, providing a state-of-the-art facility with excellent lighting, ergonomic workspaces, appealing break rooms, and an inviting overall aesthetic is more likely to help you attract and retain skilled employees.
If you are in the process of building or retrofitting a manufacturing space, you have the opportunity to prioritize worker safety and comfort. An experienced builder can help you optimize your floor plans, prioritize efficiency and safety, improve lighting and minimize trip and fall hazards.
Staying Technically Current
Of course, one of the most unavoidable of the top manufacturing challenges is keeping up with the steady march of technology. While new technology can help you improve efficiencies, create a safer workplace, and compete more effectively, there are potential drawbacks to adopting new systems too soon.
In any industry, early tech adopters face inherent risks. The technology itself may not fit your exact needs. You may need to retrofit existing equipment. You’ll likely need significant capital expenditure for new equipment, including servers and a climate-controlled room to contain them. Your employees will need to undergo training to use new technology and equipment safely. The technology itself will need to defend against cyber threats.
These risks mean that even if you’re first to market with products aided by new technology, it may not fit your needs. The cost of implementation may not cover the cost of adopting the latest technology, either. Whenever you consider upgrading technology for your manufacturing site, it’s critical to fully assess the payoff of investing in its use.
Of course, new technology is a driving force in the manufacturing industry. It’s essential to keep pace with new capabilities, compete effectively, and lower production costs. One of the top manufacturing challenges is determining when to adopt new technology. Most manufacturers would like to invest early enough to create a competitive advantage but not so early that technical bugs and issues have yet to be resolved.
Scaling for Growth
Scaling is a classic business issue, where timing matters more than ever. If you scale too soon, your finances can stretch too far, leaving your business vulnerable to the most minor changes. If you scale too late, you risk losing market share and falling behind your competition. The question of when to scale is among the top manufacturing challenges.
Beyond timing, plenty of practical issues can impact your ability to scale. Do you have space on your manufacturing floor to increase production? Can you convert old production lines or unused offices into more manufacturing space? In other words, do you have enough capacity to properly scale in a timeframe that would make sense for your market?
If you know the time is right to scale your business for growth, you may need to get creative about finding more room for manufacturing. Within your existing location, you may be able to reorganize floor plans renovate, or redesign your space. Depending on the nature of your business, you may need more space altogether. In this case, you will need to move your business to an existing facility or build from the ground up.
Finding the Right Build Partner
The benefit of building from scratch is that you can design a space to fit your current and future needs. You can catch up to current technology and incorporate it into your manufacturing floor. You can make the work environment safe, bright, and appealing to workers, tackling several business objectives simultaneously.
If you are considering a renovation, redesign, or build project, it’s essential to work with an experienced builder with a proven track record in manufacturing. A trusted build partner will help you make informed decisions about location, design, layout, building materials, processes, and methods.
As you can imagine, working with an inexperienced builder can lead to missed opportunities and expensive missteps. This risk is why finding the right builder for expansion or new build opportunities is among the top manufacturing challenges. It’s worth spending the time to thoroughly research the most experienced, predictable and reliable builders in your area.
We’re Ready to Help
At J.B. Donaldson, we are a premium design-build contractor with over 20 years of experience in a wide range of industries, including manufacturing. With extensive in-house expertise, we collaborate closely with our clients, helping you navigate every aspect of your manufacturing project, from pre-construction to final design.
We are at the forefront of construction industry trends in both residential and commercial builds. We apply our knowledge to every aspect of the build process, using tried and tested techniques to improve the cost and efficiency of your project.
We value quality, consistency, and predictability, which allows you to count on schedules, costs, and project integrity. Our commitment to excellence allows us to provide creative designs, practical solutions, and innovative ideas for your manufacturing project while keeping your goals and objectives as top priorities.
