Spring has sprung, the blossoms have returned, the sports cars are out of storage, the Winter Championships are done (that one is a personal one, as is the sports car one), say what you will, things have changed!
In performing our risk assessments years ago, one scenario was that we would see more mold inquiries than we have internal capacity for. Each year we forecast our revenue levels for the year on a month-by-month basis. We have a great deal of data to draw from to determine these numbers. What is harder to predict is the new business aspect, in particular the number of new products that will be introduced by both existing customers and new customers. New products mean new molds. We are certainly in discussions with existing customers on their new projects. It is the development cycle timing of them that varies greatly. Some take months, some take years. Then there are the new customers that come about from our marketing efforts. Knowing when those new molds will show up as purchase orders is the sketchier part.
On the production side, we can plan for excess capacity to accommodate new or increased business coming in and have always been able to scale when needed.
This Spring’s mold demand has been, well, almost off the charts.
Compared to the prior 10 years, the first quarter 2021 dwarfs them all.
Fortunately, as I said, we had planned for just such an event and have been managing the demand through both internal and external resources. To have excess internal capacity just waiting for such a possibility would be excess costs that our customer base should not be subject to supporting. As such, chosen partners are available to work with us to help satisfy our demand. Things are progressing quite smoothly thanks to up front planning, documentation, and communication.
Of course, this level of mold development implies a surge in our production molding as well. This “heads up” is more than enough notice to assess and accommodate any increases across all our press ranges.
So, if you ever find yourself questioning our ability to scale and grow, I refer you back to the chart above, and a trend of beating revenue forecasts 41 out of the last 48 months.
Think you are demanding? We can handle it, give us a call.