In manufacturing, having the equipment to produce something and having the capacity to get it produced are not always the same thing.
I learned that lesson firsthand while leading an industrial manufacturing operation serving customers with demanding production schedules and delivery requirements.
Throughout my career, my background in Lean manufacturing and Six Sigma has taught me to look beyond the immediate problem, identify the true constraint, and understand how changes in one part of an operation affect the entire process. That perspective became especially important during this recovery.
Like most plant managers, I understood that equipment reliability, production scheduling, quality, and labor availability were all critical to our success. What I didn’t fully appreciate until we faced a significant operational disruption was just how quickly the constraint in a manufacturing operation could move from one area to another.
And when that happens, the ability to respond can make the difference between recovering control of the operation and falling further behind.
Under normal conditions, our operation maintained approximately 700 to 900 hours of production backlog. With multiple customers sharing production equipment, maintaining a consistent flow of work required careful planning and coordination.
Our normal on-time delivery performance was approximately 98%. Then we began experiencing equipment reliability and infrastructure challenges that significantly reduced our available machine capacity.
The backlog started growing.
As the problems continued, we eventually accumulated more than 2,200 hours of production backlog. Our on-time delivery performance dropped to approximately 90% for a couple of months.
For anyone who has managed a manufacturing facility, those numbers tell a story.
Behind every hour of backlog is a customer waiting for parts, a production schedule that needs to be adjusted, and employees doing their best to keep the operation moving.
And while we were working to restore equipment reliability, customer demand wasn’t standing still.
We needed to recover, but we also needed to protect the business from creating additional long-term problems in the process.
Our initial focus was exactly where you would expect it to be: restoring equipment availability, addressing infrastructure problems, and improving production priorities.
But as equipment became available again, another challenge emerged. We needed people to operate the machines.
We also needed people to pack finished products, move materials, and support the flow of production.
In our operation, a significant amount of work took place after the primary production process. Finished parts often required manual packing before shipment.
That meant getting a machine running again didn’t necessarily mean we could immediately ship more product.
We could restore machine capacity only to discover that packing or material handling had become the next bottleneck.
The constraint was moving, and our labor model needed to move with it.
Traditional recruiting wasn’t providing the responsiveness we needed.
During one two-week period, we received only three applications for part-time positions. One person started, another accepted a higher-paying opportunity, and the third never showed up.
Meanwhile, the production requirements continued to change.
We couldn’t simply hire our way out of the problem by permanently increasing headcount. We were addressing an extraordinary backlog, not necessarily a permanent increase in customer demand.
Adding fixed labor costs to solve a temporary problem could create a different challenge once production returned to normal.
We needed another option.
That’s when Veryable became an important part of our recovery strategy.
Initially, I had the same concerns many manufacturing leaders probably have when considering flexible labor.
Would the Operators show up?
Would they understand the importance of safety?
Could they learn our processes?
Would they work well with our existing employees?
And perhaps most importantly, could we maintain the quality standards our customers expected?
Those were legitimate questions.
Our answer wasn’t to bypass our existing training and onboarding requirements. It was to integrate flexible labor into those established processes.
Every Veryable Operator completed approximately two hours of HR onboarding and received a clock number before entering production.
We typically started new Operators in finished-goods packing, where they could learn the operation while supervisors evaluated attendance, attitude, safety awareness, and their ability to work with the team.
As individuals demonstrated reliability and competency, we gradually introduced them to machine operation, beginning with less-complex equipment and progressing as their skills developed.
We also created skill-based categories for more specialized assignments, including Quality, Maintenance, and Forklift work.
The objective was straightforward. We weren’t looking for someone to walk into the plant and immediately become an expert.
We were building a group of capable people who could become increasingly valuable as they gained experience.
And we intentionally brought back the Operators who performed well.
Over time, that approach helped us establish a Labor Pool of people who understood our facility, our expectations, and the work we needed completed.
One of the biggest changes came when we stopped thinking about flexible labor as something to use only when we were short-handed.
Instead, we began incorporating it into our regular production planning.
I typically developed our initial labor plan the week before, using current backlog, incoming work, equipment availability, and expected staffing gaps.
But commercial manufacturing can be unpredictable. We often didn’t know exactly what work was coming until it arrived.
A plan that looked reasonable on Friday could be completely different by Tuesday.
There were times when we suddenly had more machines available to run than we had people available to operate them.
In the past, that could mean idle equipment, additional overtime, or work waiting until someone became available.
With an established Labor Pool, we had another option. We could request additional Operators and respond to what was actually happening in the plant.
During the peak of our recovery effort, we were using approximately 10 Veryable Operators per day across three shifts. In a typical five-day peak week, that represented nearly 400 additional labor-hours. Approximately 50% of those hours supported machine operation, 40% supported finished-goods packing, and 10% supported material handling.
That distribution was important because our needs weren’t always the same. Some days, we needed more people running machines. Other days, getting finished products packed and ready for shipment was the greater priority.
The flexibility allowed us to direct additional labor toward the current constraint, where it could create the most operational value.
There is another part of this experience that I believe deserves more attention.
The goal was never to replace our full-time employees. Our permanent workforce carried the experience, technical knowledge, and customer-specific understanding that made the operation successful.
They knew the critical programs. They understood the processes. They had developed skills that couldn’t simply be replaced overnight.
What we needed was a way to help them remain focused on the work where their experience mattered most. Veryable Operators helped provide that support.
By assigning flexible labor to appropriate machine operations, packing, and material movement, we could keep our experienced employees focused on critical, high-volume customer programs.
That approach helped us recover capacity without continuously asking the same employees to work longer and longer schedules. During the recovery period, our permanent workforce worked only one seven-day workweek.
That mattered to me. As plant managers, we have a responsibility to deliver for our customers, but we also have a responsibility to consider the long-term sustainability of our workforce.
Overtime can be a valuable tool. But when excessive overtime becomes the primary strategy for overcoming operational challenges, we need to ask whether we’re solving the problem or simply placing
more pressure on our people.
Over approximately three months, we reduced our production backlog from more than 2,200 hours to fewer than 700 hours.
We accomplished that without adding permanent full-time headcount specifically for the recovery.
As equipment reliability improved, additional labor capacity became available, and backlog declined, our delivery performance recovered.
We also continued supporting our high-volume customer programs without turning away that work during the recovery.
Veryable wasn’t the only reason we succeeded. Restoring equipment availability, improving production priorities, and the commitment of our employees were all essential.
But flexible labor was a significant part of the recovery.
It allowed us to use available equipment more effectively, reduce our dependence on extended overtime schedules, and respond to changing production needs without creating a permanent staffing commitment for a temporary situation.
There was also a financial consideration. When we compared the cost of flexible labor with our fully loaded permanent labor costs and the additional expense of overtime, we recognized another potential benefit of the approach.
While we didn’t have sufficiently developed labor standards to calculate precise savings by job, and our backlog was measured in production hours rather than employee labor-hours, the comparison reinforced the value of having a flexible workforce option available when production requirements changed.
Looking back, the most important thing I gained from that experience wasn’t simply a lower backlog number.
It was a different understanding of labor capacity. For much of my manufacturing career, workforce planning was primarily built around a fixed number of employees, established shifts, and overtime when additional production was needed.
That approach can work well under stable conditions. But manufacturing isn’t always stable. Equipment breaks down. Customer demand changes. Production schedules shift. Material arrives unexpectedly. And the constraint that limited your operation yesterday may not be the same constraint limiting it tomorrow.
What changed for me was the question I began asking.
Instead of focusing exclusively on how many employees we had, I started asking:
How much labor capacity does the operation actually need, where is it needed, and what is the most financially responsible way to provide it?
That question changed the way I approached production planning.
I still believe strongly in building a skilled, committed, and experienced permanent workforce. I also believe manufacturers need the ability to adjust capacity as operating conditions change.
Those two ideas aren’t in conflict. In fact, when managed correctly, they can strengthen one another.
My experience taught me that flexible labor works best when it is treated as a planned operational capability rather than an emergency response.
It requires preparation, standardized onboarding, clear expectations, effective supervision, and a commitment to bringing capable people back.
But when those elements are in place, it can become a valuable part of a manufacturer’s operating strategy.
Because operational excellence isn’t just about having the right equipment, the right processes, or the right people.
It’s about having the ability to bring them together at the right time to meet the needs of the business.
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