Step 1 - Geographical placement, community support
Ask yourself:
- What is the closest place where a quality 10,000 sq. ft. building is available
- With a local workforce you can afford with skills of some sort.
- Will the local government be responsive to your needs?
- Is this a good area for expansion?
- Shipping issues
- Local advantages
Unless you receive support from the local community, in more than nice-sounding words, planning is different.
Would a member of your group want to commute to the plant? Is the cost of the area, both rent and employee costs, be worth the cost penalty?
While your plant will not produce excessive pollution, you do manufacturing. What are the regulations you expect?
I don't want you to do anything physical, rather think how the placement of your new business will affect your sucess.
Step 1a - forming the proper attitude to succeed
To the Colorado group:
Custom sweaters has a natural base in the mountain recreation areas. In Step 2 you will begin to define your products and their competitive advantages.
Do not get excited about raising money as lots of wealth inhabits your Rockies. About a year may go by faster then you think. Be ready to be patient or overwhelmed.
If you, as a normal person in today's world and know little of manufacturing, automation is very cool and real wealth is created whether made by people or machine.
You may be buying a regional license, such as Colorado and Wyoming, so think about how you feel on expansion and the services needed. In the end, your group may have established 10 manufacturing villages in the next 5 - 10 years in your geographic area. Are you ready for being able to keep control of several installations in wide ranging areas?
Each Manufacturing Village is set to scale out at $10 million if 8-10 manuifactuirng units are in place. With 10 MV operations/franchises this adds up to reasonable dollars and needs a reasonable control computerized system to keep control and long-lived villages.
This is the time to think and ask people who may know better than us about complex situations. Let's make sure we can answer all their questions and important points.
Click here for a safe comment form. Let me know if I have covered all issues.