Nine reasons why you should (and shouldn’t) use in-house manufacturing

First, we’ll look at the benefits of in-house manufacturing. Then, we will look at its possible downsides, followed by a brief example of how we combine the two ideas for the optimal solution for our customers here at PSC.

Faster manufacturing

No longer will you be reliant on a bunch of suppliers who might also deliver to other companies. Having in-house production facilities means having the shortest possible production time since you have all the necessary hardware under your roof.

Easier communication

This also means easier communication, which minimizes errors caused by miscommunication. You no longer have to think about language barriers and time zone differences. Being able to walk in and clearly communicate with your production department face-to-face is an overlooked advantage.

Fast testing and iterations of prototypes

This faster communication doesn’t just result in quicker and more efficient manufacturing of the final product. It also results in speedier prototype testing and development, saving several weeks (or even months!).

In-house quality control

Having your manufacturing in-house also means being in complete (quality) control. You can no longer supervise and monitor production when you outsource all your manufacturing processes. Therefore, you can’t regularly check whether policies and procedures are implemented correctly.

Less transit

Have you ever had delays because of problems during shipment and transportation? Maybe shipments didn’t arrive on time? Or when the shipment finally came, it arrived damaged because of improper transportation or poor packaging before transport?

Transportation issues will always be a risk factor, but the less time your inventory spends in the back of a moving truck, the better. By having in-house manufacturing, you at least minimize the number of times you must transport goods back and forth instead of unnecessarily risking damage during transit.

Less transit also means fewer emissions because of transportation and less packaging waste – which means better CSR (and a greener planet 🌎).

Data security

When data is carelessly transferred back and forth, you risk it being discovered or ‘stolen’ by a possible competitor. A one-stop shop (hint: PSC) means that your files are safely stored and encrypted within our secure server. No more unnecessary transfers of confidential data.

Now that we have looked at the benefits, let’s discuss the downsides of in-house manufacturing.

Production hardware is expensive

Things cost money. We get it.

Sometimes, it simply isn’t profitable to buy that new fancy machine. Therefore, investing heavily in production facilities might not be a good idea, especially for smaller businesses.

Inventory

In-house manufacturing is not just about the machines. Having to store and manage inventory also costs money, and it can be time-sensitive, depending on your industry.

Difficult to manage in some industries

Investing heavily in production facilities can be risky, especially in an industry where sales aren’t very steady. If you are in an industry where it can be relatively quiet at times, but orders are few (and relatively large), you risk having manufacturing facilities just sitting there a lot of the time.

Which is obviously bad.

You can avoid this by outsourcing your manufacturing, saving you money and the headache you get when you look at your manufacturing facility occasionally just sitting there, not producing anything.

Here at PSC, we have in-house manufacturing facilities for many of our manufacturing activities. We use in-house manufacturing to accommodate our customers´ specific needs regarding design and technical requirements for their customized solutions.

We combine in-house manufacturing and outsourcing

With that said, we don’t have all our manufacturing in-house. What we do have in-house instead is the knowledge and expertise regarding the choice of cover glass solutions.

With our decades of experience with optical filters and cover glass, we have developed partnerships and a supply chain network that makes it possible to design and manufacture pretty much any cover glass solution physically possible – no matter what industry our customer operates in and what the requirements are for their application’s cover glass.

The one-stop-shop

PSC’s ethos is to be the one-stop shop for optical filter and display cover glass. The way that PSC uses (and doesn’t use) in-house manufacturing means that our customers don’t have to worry about production or supply chains. We draw on our expertise and knowledge to find the best solution for our customers´ specific needs.

Without outsourcing at least some solutions, it wouldn’t be possible to provide as many kinds of solutions as we do, even if we had the manufacturing facilities to produce them ourselves.

No compromises for our customers

Our many years of experience in the industry means that we can draw on the benefits of both in-house manufacturing and outsourcing. This combination means that there are no compromises for our customers.

In close dialogue with our customers, we design, manufacture, and ship the optimal display cover glass for their specific applications.

We hope that our short article on the pros (and cons) of in-house manufacturing has given you a little food for thought.

We also hope that giving insight into our way of doing things has shown that in-house manufacturing and outsourcing don’t necessarily have to be mutually exclusive and that utilizing both can give you the benefits of both methods – if executed correctly.