Growth is every manufacturer’s goal, but it often brings an unwelcome problem – you’ve outgrown your facility.
The traditional response is to start searching for larger premises, triggering months of disruption, enormous expenses, and the issue of relocating complex production equipment.
Strategic facility means creating adaptable spaces that grow alongside your business, using vertical space intelligently, and designing layouts that support both current operations and future expansion.
Read on to learn how to accomplish that.
The True Cost of Relocating Your Manufacturing Operation
Moving a production facility represents one of the most expensive and disruptive decisions a manufacturing business can make.
Below the surface of obvious costs lies the substantial financial drain of production downtime.
The hidden costs multiply quickly:
- Equipment relocation and reinstallation: Dismantling, transporting, and reinstalling production machinery requires specialist engineers and can take weeks or months. Precision equipment often needs recalibration which only adds to the burden.
- Staff disruption and potential losses: Employees may be unable or unwilling to follow you to a new location. Losing experienced staff means recruitment costs, training expenses, and the productivity gap while new workers learn your processes.
- Supply chain reconfiguration: Changing location affects your logistics network as you’ll need to update everyone with the new address and site protocols.
- Regulatory compliance and permitting: New premises mean new planning permissions, environmental assessments, and approvals. Time-consuming stuff.
Maximising Vertical Space: The Overlooked Solution
Most manufacturing facilities dramatically underutilise their vertical space, leaving valuable capacity directly overhead untapped.
Warehouse mezzanine floors offer a particularly effective solution for manufacturers facing space constraints. These intermediate platforms can double your usable floor area without expanding your building’s footprint, creating additional space for storage, quality control areas, packaging stations, or administrative offices.
The advantages of mezzanine floors include:
- Rapid installation with minimal disruption: Modern mezzanine systems can be installed in days or weeks rather than months. Many installations occur outside regular production hours, keeping your operation running.
- Flexible configuration options: Unlike permanent construction, mezzanine structures can be reconfigured, expanded, or relocated within your facility as requirements change.
- Cost-effective expansion: Installing a warehouse mezzanine floor typically costs a fraction of equivalent ground-level expansion, whilst qualifying for accelerated capital equipment depreciation.
- Improved workflow organisation: Vertical separation allows different processes to occur simultaneously without interference. Quality control can happen on an upper level whilst production continues below.
Future-Proofing Your Layout
The most successful manufacturing facilities are designed with change built into their DNA from the outset.
Key principles for adaptable manufacturing spaces:
- Modular utility connections: Installing flexible electrical, compressed air, and data connections that can be relocated without major infrastructure work allows rapid reconfiguration as production lines change.
- Clear floor spans with minimal obstructions: Designing facilities with fewer permanent walls and columns creates open spaces that can accommodate various equipment layouts and future automation integration.
- Scalable material flow paths: Planning production layouts with clear, wide pathways supports current operations whilst leaving room for increased throughput at double your current volume.
- Segregated yet connected zones: Creating distinct areas for different functions with easy access between them allows each zone to expand independently whilst maintaining efficient workflow.
Getting Professional Expertise Right From the Start
At Spaceway, we’ve spent nearly five decades helping manufacturers create facilities that support growth without forced or unwanted relocation. Our experience spans diverse production environments – from light assembly to heavy manufacturing, from standard warehouses to specialised cleanrooms.
We handle everything from warehouse fit-out and mezzanine installations to complete production facility design, coordinating all trades and minimising disruption to your ongoing operations.
Ready to plan a production facility that grows with your business? Contact Spaceway for expert advice, or use our mezzanine calculator to explore how vertical space utilisation could transform your operations.