Setting clear goals is critical for any business, but this can be especially challenging with the complexities of manufacturing. With so many moving parts across operations, production, distribution and more, it’s easy for manufacturers to lose sight of overarching priorities. This lack of strategic alignment can stall progress.
That’s why starting with effective goal identification is the key that unlocks everything else. When manufacturers take the time to map out priorities for growth and sustainability, they transform confusion into clarity.
Creatives On Call helps manufacturing leaders cut through the clutter of day-to-day demands. Our team brings decades of combined expertise across operations, marketing, branding, analytics and beyond. By assessing your current manufacturing processes, challenges and pain points, we identify exactly where you want your business to go and create a strategic roadmap to get you there.
The Importance of Manufacturing Goals
Manufacturing goals create alignment, accountability and momentum across organizations. Rather than departments or individuals getting siloed in their own metrics, company-wide goals unite everyone under the same key objectives.
Well-defined manufacturing goals also enable effective measurement and tracking. With qualitative and quantitative key performance indicators (KPIs) tied directly to each priority, manufacturers can evaluate performance over time. Teams and executives alike are held accountable for driving progress.
Clearly defined goals also lead to greater business agility by enabling organizations to pivot faster in response to changing conditions. Most importantly, goals dictate where finite resources should be allocated to drive growth, efficiency and innovation. Without clear objectives, it’s impossible to determine if investments of time, money and effort are actually moving the needle or not.
The Main Challenges of Setting Manufacturing Goals
Transforming broad aspirations like “increase production” or “improve quality” into concrete, actionable goals is easier said than done, especially for global enterprises with thousands of employees. Common struggles include:
- Capturing insights from numerous departments, factories and stakeholders when setting goals.
- Achieving consensus on which goals should take priority over others.
- Defining measurable KPIs to track progress.
- Cascading top-level goals down to site managers and shop floor workers.
- Adjusting goals based on changing business conditions.
- Maintaining ongoing buy-in as leaders and priorities shift.
Rather than tackle these multifaceted challenges solo, strategic guidance from an experienced partner like Creatives On Call can make a world of difference. Our team brings proven frameworks, facilitation expertise and change management support so manufacturers can transition seamlessly into a goal-oriented culture poised for growth.
Identifying Priorities as a Key Solution
Goal setting doesn’t have to be an insurmountable effort as long as organizations properly identify and align priorities first. What initiatives or objectives matter most right now to stay competitive, meet demand, boost quality and prepare for the future?
Creatives On Call consultants become deeply embedded within manufacturing teams to truly understand their reality on the ground. We conduct stakeholder interviews, gather cross-departmental insights, facilitate strategy sessions and map out processes. This holistic discovery phase reveals where the greatest challenges and biggest opportunities lie.
Armed with these unique findings, our team then guides manufacturers to focus on priority areas for improvement, growth or transformation. For example, a plastics producer might need to focus first on capacity expansion, a consumer goods company could require an enterprise resource planning (ERP) overhaul before pursuing smart factory upgrades and an automotive supplier might decide enriching workplace culture for employee retention is most critical. With distinct priorities providing a decision filter, manufacturers can build the right goals and key results around topics that actually move the needle rather than getting distracted by less impactful efforts that drain resources.
Understanding Manufacturing Priorities
Manufacturing priorities indicate the vital few problem areas or opportunity spaces that deserve significant attention and investment within a given timeframe to meet business needs. They reflect the topics that will make or break future success if not addressed proactively.
Effective priorities should be:
- Aligned to financial growth targets.
- Supported by key stakeholder groups.
- Chosen based on potential business impact.
- Significant enough to drive strategy.
- Measurable through ongoing data collection.
For instance, manufacturing priorities over the next year might include improving production line flexibility, reducing defects through predictive technology or enhancing virtual collaboration across globally dispersed teams.
Factors That Influence Manufacturing Priorities
Manufacturing priorities vary substantially based on a company’s maturity stage, production models, product portfolios, regional footprints and competitive forces. For example, an emerging medical device firm might make speeding up time-to-market (TTM) for patented innovations its number one priority. A consumer packaged goods giant might focus most on responsibly scaling renewable energy and reducing plastic waste to improve sustainability practices and meet eco-friendly demands. A specialized auto parts original equipment manufacturer (OEM) navigating inflation pressures and geopolitical risks might need to concentrate, above all else, on supply chain resilience and localization.
Every manufacturer’s reality is unique. But while priorities differ across segments and organizations, one thing remains constant — the need to define them in the first place.
Identifying Priorities in Manufacturing
Mapping Out Manufacturing Processes for Priority Setting
First, manufacturers must comprehensively map their current state across all locations, production lines, distribution channels and administrative functions. Documenting every process, role, pain point and data flow reveals critical needs and opportunities. It also uncovers interconnectivity, which makes it easier to anticipate how potential changes could create enterprise-wide ripple effects.
This essential step should capture both qualitative insights from employee surveys, leadership interviews and focus groups, as well as hard quantitative operational metrics. Comparing subjective perspectives with actual performance data better validates priority considerations.
Using Value Stream Mapping To Identify Priorities
Within the overall manufacturing process mapping, value stream mapping stands out for identifying priorities. This lean management technique visually diagrams the specific activities required to design, produce and deliver finished products to customers.
Analyzing the value stream makes waste, inefficiency and bottlenecks glaringly obvious. Whether it’s queues of work-in-progress inventory, complex changeovers between product variants, or delayed shipments, the biggest constraints reveal themselves. Resolving these pain points through process improvements or technology investments needs to become a top priority.
Applying Design Thinking To Uncover Needs
Design thinking helps manufacturing leaders understand end-user needs before defining strategic priorities. This process emphasizes observing customers/employees firsthand to witness the problems they face in order to design more impactful solutions. Immersive empathy reveals pain points that participants may not vocalize in surveys or interviews.
By watching users interact with current manufacturing processes, products and systems up close, surprising insights around barriers and opportunities emerge organically. Leaders can then connect these human-centered learnings to priority setting.
At Creatives On Call, our design experts facilitate design-thinking workshops, from knowledge discovery through concept validation. We also provide training for manufacturers’ innovation teams to adopt these tools and mindsets internally.
Essential Tools for Priority Identification in Manufacturing
Beyond mapping techniques, manufacturers can leverage tools like:
- SWOT analysis: Highlights internal strengths/weaknesses and external opportunities/threats.
- PEST analysis: Evaluates how political, economic, social and technological factors necessitate priorities.
- Growth-share matrix: Plots market share and growth rates to dictate investment priorities.
- Decision matrix: Provides an analytical framework to score and compare priority considerations.
The right approach depends on a manufacturer’s specific situation and strategic questions. Ultimately, these tools help leaders cut through noise to determine the vital few priorities for enabling future prosperity.
Putting Manufacturing Priorities Into Action
Identifying the right manufacturing priorities matters only if they transform into concrete goals and executable plans. This requires buy-in across the organization to drive change. Follow these steps to effectively activate priorities.
Transform Identified Priorities Into SMART Goals
First, set specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound (SMART) goals that directly map back to each manufacturing priority. For example, if the priority is to “improve agility and responsiveness across the production schedule,” supportive goals would include:
- Reduce setup/changeover times on key lines by X% within 9 months.
- Reconfigure Y high-runner lines into flexible manufacturing cells within 12 months.
- Nearshore Z components from low-cost/long-lead time suppliers within 18 months.
Such measurable and time-bound goals keep teams focused on actually delivering promised priority outcomes.
Ensure Goals Align With Manufacturing Priorities
Next, confirm that departmental goals from sales and marketing to engineering and procurement all align vertically with overall manufacturing priorities. If manufacturing marketing strategies aim to drive demand for niche products while manufacturing focuses on improving flexibility for top sellers only, confusion will ensue.
True alignment empowers everyone to contribute towards the same end goals based on their unique scope. Misalignment risks teams unintentionally undermining overarching priorities.
Continuously Review and Adjust Priorities and Goals
Finally, as market conditions evolve and operational needs shift, revisit manufacturing priorities every 6 to 12 months. Reset accompanying goals as necessary while celebrating wins to sustain engagement. Careful goal identification might seem tedious upfront, but it pays off exponentially when priorities translate seamlessly into unified action at scale.
How Creatives On Call Can Help
At Creatives On Call, our team brings decades of combined expertise across manufacturing operations, business strategy, analytics and organizational change management. By partnering with us, manufacturers gain access to thought leadership and tailored support, including:
- Comprehensive operational assessments to reveal problem areas and opportunities.
- Data-driven diagnostics quantifying the business case to set strategic priorities.
- Stakeholder alignment and consensus building to define the vital few priorities with the greatest impact potential.
- Expert facilitation and project management orchestrating priority-based transformation from insights to outcomes.
- Ongoing priority and goal reviews to ensure initiatives remain relevant amidst an evolving landscape.
Our end-to-end approach also connects strategy to execution across branding, web design solutions, content development, customer engagement and more. For example, we might conduct stakeholder interviews and workshops to inform rebranding tied to new manufacturing priorities, create web pages that bring the branding to life digitally, generate customized content like case studies that showcase success stories, and deploy customer experience tools to align sales and marketing with strategic goals. We also offer infographic design services for manufacturers to visually communicate key information like manufacturing processes, priorities, and performance metrics in a digestible, engaging way.
Is your business ready to unlock your full potential? Let’s connect today to start mapping out your strategic priorities.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why are priorities important for manufacturing companies?
Identifying clear manufacturing priorities provides strategic alignment so everyone across the organization can channel efforts towards the vital few objectives that will drive competitiveness, efficiency, quality, and growth over a given timeframe. It brings clarity to a complex environment.
How often should you set new priorities?
Revisit manufacturing priorities every 6 to 12 months to confirm that selected focus areas still reflect the biggest opportunities or challenges needed to accomplish business goals amidst evolving internal needs and external landscape factors. Reset priorities if needed.
