Business Continuity for the Manufacturing Industry

Want to know the secret for keeping your manufacturing business running even after it experiences a disaster?

Good business owners know that their companies' ongoing success and well-being depend on operational resilience. The manufacturing industry is no exception. So, manufacturers need to have business continuity plans. 

It's best to form these plans as soon as you launch your manufacturing company. Without them, you run the risk of frustrating clients and not generating as much revenue.

Below, we'll get into some key things you need to know about developing and preserving business continuity. Keep reading to learn more.

What Challenges Do Manufacturing Companies Face?

A manufacturing company faces many of the same emergency preparedness challenges that other companies confront. Yet, there are some key differences. Manufacturing companies might be especially vulnerable to certain kinds of risks.

Because the manufacturing industry relies on the ability to promptly create and deliver items to customers, companies might stagnate if their internal problems interfere with this process. Your goal as a manufacturing leader should always be to get your products to your consumers as fast as you safely can. 

To accomplish this, you need to avoid staffing, equipment, and materials disruptions. If you work long enough, you have a high probability of encountering problems in at least one of these areas.

Companies with a solid business continuity plan fare better during these times.

What Areas Should Your Plan Include?

A smart business continuity plan doesn't only look toward the future. It involves looking at what you can do in the here and now to make sure you stay afloat during an emergency.

To get started on formulating a business continuity plan, you'll need to call a team meeting that includes your company leaders. You should identify some of the specific risks to your company. You should also focus on prevention whenever possible. Then, look at the resources you'll need if these things happen. 

If it's not possible to prevent an emergency from occurring, figure out the likelihood of it happening. Then, look at its potential impact on your business. You should plan for the most likely emergencies first.

In the past, business continuity plans were difficult to formulate and required a lot of long hours from workers. Now, that's not the case. We've built Agility Planner and RecoveryPlanner to help you streamline your continuity planning. 

Incident Management

The main goal of any business continuity plan should center on doing as much prevention as possible. As such, you need a system that allows you to share what you'd like your employees to do.

With Agility Incident Manager, you have the opportunity to create action lists for your workers. Action lists let them know what needs to get done when certain circumstances happen. As people complete the actions, they can check them off the list.

Incident management puts you in control in the case of an emergency. You'll also get real-time updates, so you can oversee how your employees are handling the crisis. 

In addition, Agility Incident Manager gives you the ability to review your plan in advance. You can identify potential fail points and correct them before an emergency happens.

Having this software helps you get on track faster than you would otherwise. 

Emergency Contact System

After identifying your potential problems, you'll want to develop a robust emergency communication system.

Communication is essential when you have an ongoing emergency. In some cases, the emergency will involve physical danger to your workers. Your employees will need to know how to adapt and alter their actions in all cases.

You need a communication system that allows you to share information. It should also give your employees the ability to ask questions and communicate updates.

The Agility Central platform allows you to send mass messages via Agility Alerts (Preparis) that include information about potential hazards and employee instructions. These messages are bi-directional, so your workers can reply. You'll know if they need resources to handle the emergency, and you can check on their safety.

Agility Alerts also lets you send out updates to people. You can let your employees know when the situation evolves and give them updated instructions. You can also let them know when the situation has concluded, and they can go about business as usual.

Planning, Testing, Training, and Exercising

After you finish the planning phase, you need to get into testing, training, and exercising. 

An emergency isn't the time to teach your employees about your plan. Instead, everyone should know about the plan beforehand. You should train them on how to implement the plan. For the best results, go through exercises with them. 

That way, they'll have the ability to execute the plan without needing someone to walk them through it.

Our software lets you do your planning, testing, training, and exercising all in one spot. With Agility, you can keep everyone at your workplace on the same page and respond faster and better to emergencies.

Ready to Improve Your Emergency Response?

Your manufacturing business needs to have a quick and dynamic response to the emergencies it might face.

Business continuity planning helps you avoid as much disruption as possible and keeps you on track to meet your business goals. When you put time and effort into your business planning, you'll save yourself money and keep your employees safer. 

Ready to improve your response to emergencies? Book a free demo of Agility today!