Photo Credit: Open Works Baltimore
As soon as quarantine hit, Open Works Baltimore pivoted from running a community makerspace to prototyping and producing face shields with 3D printed head bands. Building Momentum, in Alexandria, VA, closed their shared production shop and began to prototype and test robotic UV boxes to clean rooms of COVID-19 with no human interaction. Rightfully Sewn, in Kansas City, immediately turned all of their fashion sewing capacity into mask making by the thousands for front line workers.
All of these businesses and non-profits were already part of the small-scale manufacturing sector and prepared almost overnight to help fight the pandemic and fill the gaping holes in our domestic supply chain.
Now we need to purposefully invest in small-scale manufacturing to ensure we have secure supply chains in the future and pursue this as a local economic development strategy.
The gaping hole came into our homes as daily news coverage told us all about it in March and April – we didn’t have enough companies to make PPE, or cotton swabs, or ventilators or pretty much anything we needed to fight this crisis.
Today, shops of all kinds have changed their production to provide some of these essential needs. But it’s not enough. These essential resources are likely to disappear after the crisis unless we decide to expand this market.
We need to invest in secure supply chains with small-scale manufacturing businesses.
Continued investment in this sector will help us build a stronger and more diverse local economy and help us come out of this economic crisis faster with businesses that do not require much (if any) retail interaction to build more local revenues today.
Here are four major steps we can take to create secure supply chains in each of our communities:
1. Identify existing small-scale manufacturing businesses and connect them with anchor institutions
Many local institutions, from schools and colleges to local government and major businesses, procure many of products from far away. We need to assess what products can be procured from local or regional businesses. This will help to support essential needs producers during non-emergency times. Local anchors can make procurement commitments to the community, like Hopkins Local, or host reserve pitch competitions or speed dating events for the small producers where the anchors present their product needs for the coming year and invite local business owners to fulfill those needs.
One note: Many communities don’t believe that there are enough local producers in the community to support these needs. And honestly, at the start, you may only invest 5-10 percent of procurement into that sector. But by publicly supporting this sector, and annually presenting the product needs, the sector will grow and your secure supply chain will grow.
And if you don’t know where to start to find these product businesses, check out the how to here.
2. Provide training for product business startups and growing businesses to support resilient local businesses
We know how to help people launch businesses. We have trainings for tech startups in almost every community (or maybe it just feels like that). Now is the time to offer trainings for product business launches to fill the gaps we identify after making those anchor connections. Startups programs from CO.STARTERS or locally created programs like Growing Entrepreneurs Marion that invest in training and space for new businesses are great models. Let’s fill the gaps in our supply chain through a “make it here” program.
And then let’s help them scale. Let’s get mentors and programming and cohorts that can help each one of these businesses reach a stable size and market to keep producing their regular products and our essential needs. It will help us create a secure supply chain and a stronger local economy.
3. Create spaces and provide growth financing for these businesses
These businesses need space – mostly small space. Most product businesses are under 20 employees, often fewer than 5 employees. These businesses are mostly modern manufacturing. They are clean and quiet. They can be great neighbors on main street or around downtown to diversify storefronts and fill vacant spaces. But they often need industrial priced space (versus retail prices) and they need small spaces (under 1,000 sqft). We need to ensure that these options existing in our community so that the small-scale manufacturers can launch and grow in our communities. And we need zoning and permitting that allows the quiet ones into our downtowns and neighborhood main streets.
Then we need to back them up with financing. These aren’t the boom and bust unicorns of tech. These are often slow growth and family-owned local businesses (no hyper growth and quick buyouts of the businesses). They put down roots in our communities, hire from the community, and spend in the community. Yet, their capital needs are often challenging to procure the raw supplies and tools they need to make their product. Financing for product businesses becomes essential for growth.
4. Create market connectors to expand the reach of the small-scale manufacturing business sector
We need to know our small product businesses. And we need to help them connect to markets so that they are strong businesses to help us with essential needs during a time of crisis. We can create regional one-stop shops online so that large businesses, local governments, and other anchors across the region can easily see what products are made locally and can procure them from local businesses. Let’s make those connections and truly knit our local economy together so that dollars spent by one company invest in another one in the region wherever possible.
Communities with small-scale manufacturing businesses started to fill our emergency gaps for essential products overnight. Now is the time to recognize this essential need in our communities and invest in small-scale manufacturing.
These businesses will help us create a more secure future and build a more resilient and diverse local economy. We can grow our product sector to ensure that we are prepared for the next crisis. We can create more good paying jobs in our communities. We can fill vacant spaces and connect people.
Ready to get started? Get the free training Stop Panicking & Start Acting today.
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