Now that the holiday season has passed, many people are taking it upon themselves to get what they really wanted to be gifted this year. Along with year-end indulgence comes year-end returns, with many customers acting now before they forget. Hitting “order” and checking your tracking number every day may come with some anticipation, but how would you feel if you knew your item was safely wrapped under someone else’s Christmas tree before it ever made it to your door?

Ahh, Black Friday. For many companies, this is the time of year that sees the most business and can make or break your success in hitting annual targets. Earlier this season, we wrote about the benefits manufacturers could anticipate from utilizing on-demand labor to get through a peak creation season. Only a month later, the time for distributors and fulfillment centers to gear up for the busy season has arrived.

Black Friday kicks off the holiday shopping season for consumers worldwide. While they’re scrolling through must-have lists and shopping guides a couple of weeks out, manufacturers have already produced the season’s hottest items. Forecasting demand and getting boxes ready to fly off the shelves is no simple task and requires manpower from all angles where manufacturing is concerned.

If you say “we only want to hire full-time employees,” then you’ve probably been burned by temp staffing or aren’t aware of all the options for finding workers to get work done in your facility. Keeping your labor capacity at the right level is a big problem to solve, and if you expect better results, you’re going to need to change your methods.

Imagine it’s the busiest month of the year and you can’t take on any more orders because your employees are maxed out with their workload. You’ve all had your fill of overtime and if anyone has to call out, you don’t know how you’ll make it through the week.

A big question many managers have when they hear of on-demand labor is if it really means workers will show up at the push of a button. 

It’s a huge ordeal to move into a new facility. Manufacturing leaders have spent many long nights worrying about the details of this kind of project, so we’ve provided a guide on what to do when you’re moving manufacturing facilities.

It’s something manufacturing leaders dream about: one day, a huge order comes in for your products, and you’ll be sitting on a gold mine once you ship everything out to your happy customers. Depending on how prepared your company is to handle the spike in demand, this could sound like a good dream or a nightmare.

No matter how hard you try, it seems like the busy season throws more at your business than you’re prepared to handle. Every year, it’s a scramble to grab the extra cash that’s being thrown your way if you can meet your customers’ seemingly insatiable, seasonal demand for that precious period of time.

It’s that time of year when every business that engages in the holiday retail dash is ramping up operations. Everybody is competing to hire hundreds of thousands of seasonal workers to meet holiday demand.

But some parts of the seasonal hiring are way different in 2020. The coronavirus has expanded the timeline for the holiday dash beyond the traditional timeframe. Scaling up to capture your share of the increased demand during this season is a huge boost for many businesses. If you’re hoping to fill higher order volumes in Q4 this year, you likely find yourself asking, “How can I compete in the holiday hiring spree?”