Dispatch issue #6 - Manufacturing
TALENT IS THE NEW SUPPLY CHAIN
A $50M manufacturer just turned down a $10M contract. Not because they lacked equipment or materials, but because they couldn't find enough qualified welders to fulfill it.
This isn't an outlier. It's the new reality.
For years, when business leaders talked about "supply chain," they meant steel, semiconductors, containers, and shipping lanes. But in today's manufacturing industry, there's another supply chain getting lots of attention, especially among small and mid-sized companies: people.
Even in an era of rapid advancements in technology and automation, people still determine the course of any business. And it's increasingly evident that the manufacturing talent supply chain is under enormous strain.
The numbers tell the story: The average manufacturing worker is 44 and climbing. In many plants, the most experienced operators are eligible for retirement within five years, taking decades of institutional knowledge with them. Meanwhile, the pipeline of younger talent is too thin to replace them. Many younger workers don't see manufacturing as a viable career path, often because they picture hard, laborious work inside factories instead of analytical work inside high-tech firms with robotics, sensors, and software.
Even when manufacturers invest heavily in talent recruitment, they discover a brutal skills gap. Running a CNC machine, maintaining automated lines, or programming a robot isn't something learned in a semester of shop class. The result? A paradox that would be funny if it weren't so expensive: manufacturers can often source steel faster than they can source a skilled machinist.
A Complete Mindset Shift
But here's what's separating the winners from the losers: the smartest operators aren't waiting for the labor market to fix itself. Just as they don't wish their materials suppliers would magically improve, they aren't hoping for someone else to close the talent gap.
Instead, they're approaching talent the way they would any other critical supply chain: deliberately, strategically, and with built-in redundancy.
Some of the most effective strategies we're seeing include:
Apprenticeship programs that bring in raw talent and grow it into capability over time.
Cross-training initiatives that reduce reliance on any single person or skill set.
Partnerships with local schools and community colleges, turning them into feeders for specific manufacturing roles.
Internal "universities" or training academies that build not just skills but loyalty and culture.
In other words, savvy operators are building the equivalent of just-in-time inventory for people. Except in this case, the goal isn't "just in time", it's "just ahead of time."
One manufacturer leading this charge is Main Street Summit Manufacturing Track speaker Kevin Murray, President of Rylee + Cru, a children's clothing manufacturer and apparel brand. Reflecting on a strategic decision that transformed his operations, Kevin explained:
"It's been hiring high-level, key staff members to lay the foundation for future growth. In the past, I would backfill staff to catch up to growth, but now we're thinking differently and investing in front-loading staff to propel growth."
This shift paid dividends. Rylee + Cru reduced time-to-productivity for new hires by 40% and cut turnover among key positions to nearly zero. Shifting his mindset to viewing his talent supply chain the same way he views his fabric suppliers fundamentally changed how Kevin runs his business.
The Questions that the Best Manufacturers Are asking
Once you start thinking of talent as a supply chain, the same questions you'd apply to materials or logistics suddenly become survival questions in a workforce context:
Where are the bottlenecks? Is it welders? Machine operators? Supervisors? If you don't know, you're flying blind.
How reliable are your sources? Do you have one school you recruit from, or five? Single-source anything is a recipe for disaster.
Do you have redundancy? If your lead maintenance manager left tomorrow, who could step in? If the answer is "nobody," you don't have a team; you have a house of cards.
Are you investing in resilience? Not just hiring for today, but preparing for the skills you'll need in three to five years.
Here's your stress test: If your three most critical people gave notice tomorrow, could you maintain operations? If the answer is "maybe" or "for a while," you don't have a talent strategy; you have hope disguised as a plan.
These aren't abstract questions. They're survival questions. Because, unlike a missed parts shipment, which can eventually be expedited, a missing human capability can stall growth for months or years.THE TAKEAWAY
You don’t need to raise $10 million to operate like a great startup. Nor do you need to grow 10x overnight to benefit from the so-called startup contradiction.
Here are a few actions to implement in your own business:
1. Do Things That Don’t Scale On Purpose
Don’t outsource trust. Deliver early customer experiences manually, directly, and with obsessive attention. You’ll learn faster and build real loyalty.
2. Make Thinking Visible
Replace long meetings with short writing. A memo beats a brainstorm every time. Remember that clarity scales while confusion multiplies.
3. Revisit Your Convictions Slowly
Fast growth is exciting, but long-term resilience requires deep belief. What do you know about your customers that others overlook? Sit with that question. Then act based on what you discover.
4. Design Your Own Slowness
Make slowness a feature of your systems, not a bug. For key decisions like hiring and strategic initiatives, build in time for thought, feedback, and silence. Sometimes a two-day delay is worth two years of alignment.
THE Bottom Line
Your business is only as resilient as the people running it. Materials can be sourced. Machines can be bought. But the next decade of U.S. manufacturing will be defined not by who has the best equipment, but by who has the best system for attracting, training, and retaining people.
The companies that survive the next decade won't be those with the newest equipment or the deepest pockets. They'll be the ones that cracked the talent code while their competitors were still posting job ads and praying.
That's why the manufacturing mantra going forward is this: talent is the new supply chain.
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