An industrial company experiencing explosive growth faced an urgent capacity challenge. Market demand was accelerating faster than the existing manufacturing network could support, requiring leadership to make critical decisions about where to expand and which products and components should be manufactured in each location.
These decisions needed to account for a wide range of factors, including regional demand patterns, the location and capabilities of current facilities, labor availability and cost, geopolitical stability, infrastructure, and supply chain considerations.
We worked closely with senior executives and a cross-functional operational core team to structure and guide this complex set of decisions. The engagement began by defining a clear decision framework and objectives that were aligned with the company’s aggressive growth strategy. From there, we identified and quantified the full set of financial and operational factors that would influence manufacturing location and capacity choices and used them to develop a set of viable expansion scenarios.
Each scenario was rigorously evaluated through financial modeling and a structured assessment of non-financial considerations such as risk, flexibility, and operational resilience. This enabled leadership to understand the tradeoffs inherent in different network configurations and to compare alternatives on a consistent, fact-based basis. The analysis culminated in the selection of an optimal manufacturing footprint, along with defined variants and a clear strategy addressing costs, risks, and the critical success factors required for execution.
The resulting strategy was implemented across Europe and Asia and played a central role in supporting the company’s rapid growth. Within two years, the business achieved record financial results, demonstrating the effectiveness of a disciplined, analytically driven approach to global capacity expansion.