The COVID-19 pandemic continues to plague the planet. Manufacturing organizations face new operational challenges because frontline staff can’t take their work to the safety of their homes, and potential customers are blocked from the market by social/physical distancing requirements. How can businesses of all sizes meet these new requirements?
The three areas where business owners can concentrate their efforts are on education, anticipating supply chain issues, and marketing and sales activities.
Do you feel technology is advancing too fast for you to keep up? Do you focus too much on how changing machines, software, and/or processes will disrupt your facility, and less on the future benefits of these changes? As technology continues to evolve and improve, these advancements promise to improve everything—cost, quality, flexibility, delivery, process, speed and design. But this fact still leaves window and door fabricators without answers.
I’ve played window historian on this blog in the past, tracking specifically the way that vinyl has ascended over the decades from a mistrusted bargain material to the undisputed market leader. Why the shift? There have been material improvements, of course. Standards and certifications helped, too. But above all, the general public came to trust vinyl. And consumers have since reaped the benefits that high-performance vinyl framing can provide.
With hurricanes predicted to worsen in the coming years, according to a study by Yale University, the resiliency conversation is more important to the building products industry than ever. Certainly, smart building practices and materials are paramount to the conversation, but even the strongest of buildings can fail under enough force. After the storm rolls out, it leaves in its wake a trail of damage, from which homeowners and communities must rebuild.