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Remember when manufacturing costs didn’t feel like a snowball careening downhill?
Unfortunately, managing manufacturing costs has become more difficult than ever. This guide will explain the methods that converters (like Strouse) commonly use to reduce your production costs.
What is Causing Manufacturing Price Increases?
As you can probably guess, there isn’t one singular reason why prices have increased over the past year. It could be due to-
- Inflation
- A U.S. Manufacturing survey showed inflation worries are ‘worse than pandemic era.’
- Tariffs
- A barrage of tariff updates
- Transportation and Shipping Costs
- Base shipping rates have increased by about 6%, depending on the service and carrier, according to data analytics from FedEx, UPS, and USPS.
- Higher Labor Expenses
- Compensation costs rose 3.4% from the start of the year through June (Employment Cost Index).
When suppliers and distributors raise their prices, converters might be forced to adjust accordingly. Occasionally, the cost of a particular material decreases, but most of the time it increases.
Imagine that a material costing you $1/ft a year ago is increasing to $1.30/ft this year. Therefore, buying a 10,000 ft roll will cost $3,000 more. Although a 30% increase might not sound like much initially, those extra dollars add up.
How Converters Help Manage Price Increases
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Converters Reevaluate Your Material Pricing |
Create custom material stack-ups |
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Find generic brand equivalents |
REEVALUATE YOUR MATERIAL PRICING
The first opportunity to reduce costs is by reevaluating your material selection. Material technology evolves over time, so it’s worth revisiting your products periodically to see whether any lower-cost alternatives exist.
In some cases, we can create a custom material stack-up that delivers the same performance using more economical materials; other times, we can recommend a generic equivalent instead of a premium branded product.
Think of it like buying Kleenex versus a store-brand tissue: Both serve the same purpose, but one comes with a higher price tag because of the brand. The same concept often applies to industrial materials. For example, many people refer to polyimide tape as Kapton tape, even though Kapton is simply DuPont’s brand name. Depending on the application, a non-branded polyimide tape may perform the same function at a lower cost.
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Converters Offer Stock Order Programs |
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Place bigger orders = Have larger production runs |
Pay shorter material setup and teardown time |
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Receive volume discounts from suppliers |
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Experience fewer production interruptions |
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OFFER STOCK ORDER PROGRAMS
Another great way to lower costs is by taking advantage of a Stock Order Program.
Instead of placing multiple small orders throughout the year, stock orders allow converters to schedule one larger production run while receiving shipments over time as inventory is needed. This approach reduces machine setup and teardown time because the converter only needs to prepare the equipment once, rather than repeating the process for each order.
Stock orders also allow materials to be purchased in larger quantities, which often unlocks volume discounts from suppliers. The result is lower manufacturing costs, more stable pricing, and fewer production interruptions throughout the year.
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Converters Optimize Designs For Manufacturing |
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Simplify features where possible |
Combine design layers |
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Relax part tolerances |
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Reduce tooling complexity |
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Enable faster production runs |
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OPTIMIZE DESIGNS FOR MANUFACTURING
A design that works isn't always optimized for manufacturing. We frequently see parts with unnecessarily tight tolerances, multiple liner configurations, extra pull tabs, or printed features that don't actually add value to the final application. Every additional feature increases manufacturing complexity, processing time, and ultimately cost.
By relaxing tolerances where possible and eliminating features that aren't truly needed, production speeds up, tooling becomes less complex, and overall manufacturing costs decrease without affecting the finished product's performance.
If you're feeling the pressure of rising manufacturing costs, it may be worth taking a fresh look at your current design instead of assuming price increases are unavoidable. Sometimes a small engineering change can create significant long-term savings.
How Can Working with an Adhesive Converter Lower Your Costs?
One of the biggest advantages of working with an experienced converter is that we're not just manufacturing the design you send us; we're looking for opportunities to improve it.
At Strouse, we evaluate the material, the design, and the production process as a complete system to identify where costs can be reduced while maintaining the performance your application requires.
In some projects, these improvements result in modest savings. In others, we've helped customers reduce costs by more than 50% simply by recommending a better material or redesigning the part's manufacturing process.
