How Veryable Helps You Deliver On-Time Regardless of Demand Without Destroying Your Profit Margins

On-time delivery isn’t just important—it’s everything in manufacturing and distribution.

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Companies that deliver consistently don’t just survive; they dominate. They win new customers, grow existing accounts with ease, and leave slower competitors in the dust. Those who miss deadlines? They bleed customers and watch their market share vanish.

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If you’ve weathered the brutal economic conditions of recent years, you’re clearly doing something right. But here’s the truth: hitting deadlines most of the time won’t make you an industry leader. To stay ahead, you need to deliver on time every single time.

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In this article, we’ll explain how leveraging the Veryable's on-demand labor model will help you do so without inflating costs.

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Why Is It So Hard to Consistently Deliver On-Time?

For manufacturers and distributors, the real challenge is that demand doesn’t match the averages you staff for—it shifts unpredictably. One day it’s a surge of orders, the next it’s a slowdown. Add in last-minute requests, employee callouts, or no-shows, and things can get messy fast.

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If you’re relying only on a traditional “staff-to-averages” model with full-time employees, you’re left with one main option when demand spikes: overtime. But that comes with a price.

• Profit margins shrink when overtime becomes the norm

• Mistakes increase as employees rush to keep up

• Morale and retention suffer—occasional OT might be fine, but too much pushes people to seek steadier schedules elsewhere

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The other option—overstaffing year-round—simply isn’t sustainable. Higher fixed labor costs eat away at your margins, canceling out the benefits of better service. Not to mention that staying slightly overstaffed year round may still not provide you with sufficient capacity during demand surges.

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Take a look at the graph below from one of our beverage distribution partners. The orange line shows average demand, while the blue line shows actual demand. Notice how often the blue spikes well above the orange—that’s the challenge you’re up against.

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With the traditional staff-to-averages approach:

• When the blue line rises above the orange, this distributor would have been forced to rely on costly overtime just to meet deadlines.

• When the blue line drops below the orange, they would have been paying employees to wait around with little to do.

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As this example shows, staffing to averages produces exactly that—average performance with excess costs. And again, even staying slightly overstaffed year-round wouldn’t have provided enough capacity to cover the highest peaks.

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Thankfully, Veryable offers a better path forward.

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Matching Headcount to Demand on a Daily Basis

Our on-demand marketplace for manufacturing and warehousing labor connects businesses with thousands of skilled, vetted workers at the click of a button. This allows companies to build a flexible extension of their full-time workforce, known as a labor pool.

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By taking this approach, businesses can scale their workforce up or down in real time to match demand. When orders surge, you can quickly add capacity to meet deadlines without risking late deliveries or overburdening your full-time employees with overtime. When demand slows, you simply scale back, avoiding unnecessary labor costs.

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Here’s what it looks like in practice:

Instead of staffing to a moving target, you anchor your full-time headcount at your minimum average volume (represented by the purple dashed line on the left side of the graphic).

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When demand rises above that threshold (closer to the pink dashed line), you flex up by deploying operators from your labor pool. When it drops, you simply dial back on usage—no excess headcount, no sunk costs.

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The result? You’re always right-sized for demand. No more overstaffing during slow periods or scrambling to keep up during spikes. Just a lean, responsive operation that delivers on-time, every time—within cost targets.

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Revenue Growth

Improving on-time delivery doesn’t just protect your reputation—it drives growth. With higher reliability, your sales team can spend less time replacing disappointed customers and more time expanding existing relationships.

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You’ll also gain the ability to take on additional orders during peak periods without worrying about capacity limits—a powerful competitive advantage.

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Here’s an example:
One distributor was in the middle of peak season when they acquired a competitor. Thanks to their labor pool, they instantly scaled up to handle the extra volume without risking missed deadlines. Soon after, a winter storm brought operations to a halt. Instead of absorbing massive losses, they scaled down for a week, saving thousands in labor costs. As soon as conditions cleared, they scaled back up—clearing the backlog quickly and keeping other operations on track. The result? They were able to pursue new business and grow revenue while competitors were still scrambling to catch up.

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Reducing Costs

By scaling your workforce up and down with demand, you can maintain a leaner headcount and avoid the waste of being perpetually over- or understaffed. The result: stronger margins and a healthier bottom line.

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The benefits go beyond labor efficiency. Higher on-time delivery rates mean your sales team no longer wastes time and resources replacing lost customers. You’ll also cut out hidden costs tied to expediting late orders, paying rush fees, or scrambling to make up for delays.

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In short, you’ll spend less, deliver more reliably, and protect your margins at every step.

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Stories From The Real World

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Manufacturer Uses Veryable to Achieve Better Delivery Performance

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Background

AircraftCo (name redacted) is a manufacturer that produces aluminum storage containers for aircraft OEMs. AircraftCo produces replacement parts on the same production lines as new orders, and any significant demand spikes result in late deliveries, excess inventory, longer lead times, and upset customers.

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The poor service and longer lead times resulted in missed revenue as customers switched to other suppliers that can ship quicker.

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Approach

By building an on-demand labor pool and bringing in 5-10 operators as needed to assist skilled FTEs and provide loading/unloading support when demand spikes, AircraftCo is able to comfortably hit on-time delivery targets regardless of weekly volume.

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Results (after 3 months):

• Weekly on-time delivery performance increased from 73% to 98%

• Expected annual revenue increase of 33%

• Fewer administrative burdens related to order expediting and customer relationship management

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RTIC Outdoors

RTIC’s in-house “Custom Shop” services B2B orders placed in bulk, and with an on-demand labor pool at the ready, they're able to ensure orders are sent out on-time regardless of daily order volume. Click here to read the full case study.

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Conclusion

Every manufacturer and distributor strives to be an industry leader—and achieving that status requires world-class on-time delivery performance.

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With an on-demand labor pool, you gain the flexibility to scale your workforce in perfect alignment with demand. Need to increase output? Bring in additional workers instantly. Demand dropped? Scale back just as quickly and minimize costs. And when the next surge arrives, you can call back proven workers from your labor pool without missing a beat.

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This makes your operations faster, more efficient, and far more resilient—giving you a decisive edge over competitors who are still operating like they did 30 year ago.

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To learn more on this topic, check out these resources:

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Improve Service Levels by Using On-Demand Labor

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How to Reduce Cycle Times to Improve Service Levels

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Take Full Advantage of E-Commerce Peak Season With Veryable

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The Amazon Effect on Manufacturing and How to Adapt

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How To Avoid A Customer Experience That Sucks: Working In Logistics

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Info For Your Role

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Getting Started

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