The door and window industry is entering its traditional busy season. Things tend to heat up in the summer, with an influx of new orders and production ramping up to meet higher demand.
This year, though, as the broader economy deals with some uncertainty, you may have found that things are a bit slower than usual. In some of my recent travels, I’ve seen fewer shifts and emptier racks than I usually do this time of year.
My natural inclination is toward optimism, though, and I think we’ll all get through this summer successfully. But in the meantime, a slower period is no reason for any forward-thinking door and window manufacturer to slow down. And that brings me to today’s tip:
Invest the time you have wisely.
Slower months bring with them the opportunity to shore up your operations in ways that busier months might not allow. I’ve written about this before—it’s a good time to bolster your preventative maintenance programs, for instance. And it’s important those opportunities don’t go to waste.
Here’s an example: It’s no secret that new trade tariffs are having an impact on how door and window professionals (or professionals in any manufacturing space) source their materials and build value into their products. For manufacturers who have sought optimal pricing overseas for components in recent years—vinyl profiles, say—those tariffs might now be complicating what was once a simple calculation to cut costs. So, now might be a good time to rethink domestically sourcing those profiles. You’ll be able to think critically about such a change in strategy, including whether inconsistent offshoring is really saving you money in the long term.
This is true of any critical component that goes into your finished window systems. Maybe now is a good time to re-evaluate your choice of spacer system. Perhaps you’ve been thinking about outsourcing your screens production or making a change in hardware. All are avenues worth exploring.
Elsewhere, there might be potential projects worth reviving that have collected dust over the past several years. You’ll likely remember both the supply chain crunch and simultaneous spike in orders that occurred just after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Perhaps you had made some plans to revamp your product portfolio before the flood of orders—now might be a good time to reconsider those plans and make an investment in some higher-performing product lines.
Undertaking training initiatives to bolster the skillsets of your workers may also make sense, better equipping them to handle a higher volume of orders when we do see demand pick back up (because it always does). The point is that any “extra” time you may have at the moment shouldn’t be wasted. It can and should be invested in strengthening your business.
John Ryba is Technical Services Director for Quanex.