How to Do a Competitive Product Analysis: Evaluate Your Industry Position

Understanding your position in the industry is important to any successful business. That’s why it’s critical to ensure that you know how to do a competitive product analysis.

A competitive product analysis will help you to determine where you stand within your industry and what you need to do to outperform your competitors.

Competitive Product Analysis Performing this type of analysis is simple, but to make sure that you do it correctly, we’ve provided a list of steps that you should follow.

Understand Your Competition

Before conducting a competitive product analysis, there are a few things you need to consider. First, you must understand who your competitors are. Those selling similar products and services located within the same geographic areas are your direct competitors. These are the businesses you need focus on.

Start Your Research

Once you have a list of your direct competitors, you need to start your research. The best way to do this is to perform a professional market research study for each competitor. This helps you get to know the similar businesses in your industry so you can better market your company as the optimal choice for consumers.

To do this, gather information regarding the companies you’re competing against. How much are they selling their goods and services for? What makes consumers want to buy from them? What are some negatives about the company? These are just a few of the questions you need to answer while conducting your research.

Gather and Analyze Product Information Details

From there, you need to learn more about your competition’s products and services. We recommend reading their sales brochures, browsing their website and, if available, going over their annual reports.

These sources provide a wealth of helpful details. They show you how much other businesses are pricing their services and products for and gives you an idea of how well they’re performing to determine how you stand against your competition.

On top of that, these details will help you to understand the overall goals of other similar businesses, whether they’re looking to increase their market shares, maximize short- or long-term profits, or establish themselves as market leaders.

Develop Your Competitive Strategy

Use the information gathered in your research to create your competitive strategy. This should outline what you need to do to set your business apart from others and what you should do to market yourself as the better consumer option. For example, if you notice that your competitors are offering lower prices for their goods and services, you can lower your prices.

Your research details should also show you how your competitors are marketing their products and services. This information can help you to improve how you showcase your own selection to better meet your sales goals. Plus it can help you to improve your advertising efforts. For instance, you can enhance your website or social media presence if you notice that your competition doesn’t have a good online marketing campaign.

As soon as everything in your competitive strategy has been executed, you should see your business climbing higher within the industry.

Continue Your Research

However, doing a competitive product analysis right once isn’t enough. With new businesses forming every day, you’ll face more and more competitions.

With that said, you must continuously perform competitive research and improve your business strategies. This will help you to maintain your ranking within the industry and even help you to boost sales and production.

Performing a competitive product analysis is key to understanding your place in the industry and what you can do to improve your rank, so follow the steps above to give your business a better chance at success.

Read CPV Manufacturing’s blog for more business tips.

How to Calculate and Budget Manufacturing Overhead

Manufacturing overhead expenses are unavoidable. All businesses must consider these costs in their budgets to ensure financial stability and an efficient production process.

To help your business perform smoothly and efficiently and maintain financial stability, here’s how to calculate and budget for manufacturing overhead.

Calculate Manufacturing Overhead Costs

To properly budget manufacturing overhead for your company, you first have to determine the exact overhead costs for each month.

Manufacturing overhead costs refers to anything that helps the production process run as smoothly as possible. These costs can include wages for machine handlers, quality control inspectors, and other workers that work directly to ensure proper production. It can also refer to the costs of equipment repairs and maintenance. Manufacturing overhead costs can also be facility fees such insurance, utilities, and property taxes.

Note: Manufacturing overhead costs don’t include money spent on direct labor or direct materials for your company.

Calculate Overhead Percentage

Once all monthly manufacturing overhead costs have been calculated, you need to determine the overhead percentage. This indicates the percentage that you’ll need to pay for manufacturing overhead every month.

To do this, take your monthly overhead costs and divide it by your company’s monthly sales. Then multiply it by 100.

For example, if your company has $100,000 in monthly manufacturing overhead and $600,000 in monthly sales, the overhead percentage would be about 17%. This means 17% of your monthly revenue will go toward your company’s overhead costs.

Budgeting for Manufacturing Overhead

Manufacturing Overhead With the overhead percentage calculated, you’re ready to develop an overhead budget. This process is simple and can provide great financial benefits for any company.

The best way to budget for manufacturing overhead is to set aside the amount of money needed to cover all overhead costs. The amount should be equal to the overhead percentage calculated from your costs divided by your monthly revenue.

Just remember that manufacturing costs as well as sales can vary from month to month. So always make sure that you keep an eye on both numbers and make adjustments as needed to ensure that your company always has enough for all overhead costs.

In Case of High Overhead Percentage

On top of that, the overhead percentage should always be low. This means that your business is using its resources more efficiently and effectively. So if your overhead percentage is high, you may want to consider improving your production process. For example, investing into energy-efficient manufacturing parts and machinery could help reduce operation costs.

You can also adjust your products’ selling prices. Doing this can bring in more revenue so you can have the additional funds needed to cover high overhead costs.

Manufacturing overhead is a necessary part of running a business. While it can be costly, tracking these expenses and sticking to a proper budget can help you to determine just how efficiently your company is performing and even help reduce overhead costs in the future.

Check out CPV Manufacturing’s blog for more tips.

How to Audit Your Manufacturing Business: Quality Control Audit Checklist

Do you know how to audit your manufacturing business? A common way of doing so is through a quality control audit which is a vital part of any manufacturing business. It helps to ensure that all processes are working effectively so your company can produce products more efficiently and minimize overall operation costs.

There are critical steps to properly perform a quality control audit. Here’s a checklist of everything you need to do to learn how to audit your manufacturing business.

How To Audit Your Manufacturing Business Successfully

1. Select Audit Type

How to Audit Your Manufacturing Business You must identify the focus and goal you want to achieve with the audit. From there, you can select one of the following three audit types that best meets your specified objectives:

System audits evaluate a company’s management systems and make sure that all elements and processes are effective. This type of audit also ensures that the development and implementation of these systems meet specified requirements. For example, a quality management system audit will review a company’s existing quality system to make sure that it fits with company policies and required regulations.

Product audits examine the services and products that a company offers to ensure they’re compliant with performance standards as well as customer, government, and company quality standards.

Process audits ensure that all company processes are performing efficiently within their established limits. This type of audit will check operation time and responsiveness as well as the effectiveness of each procedure and process specifications.

2. List Tasks and Perform Audit

quality control audit Based on the audit you need, you’ll have to perform specific tasks to accurately measure the performance and effectiveness of a specific area. When it’s time to perform the audit, list each task in a series of steps. Make sure that you follow each step to ensure that nothing is missed.

3. Record Findings in Audit Report

When the audit is complete, have your auditors create an audit report to document all of their findings. Review each report and schedule a meeting to discuss the issues listed.

4. Determine and Conduct Corrective Action

Using the reports, determine and perform corrective actions that could fix the company issues listed. Take note of everything you do to resolve each problem in a separate report. This will help you to keep track of the methods you try and help you to better choose corrective actions in the future.

5. Schedule a Follow-Up Audit

After a corrective action is completed, perform another audit to measure changes caused by the corrective action. If system processes, performance, or products improve and are more efficient and effective, record your findings in a separate audit report and discuss it. Then you can close the audit.

If findings indicate minimal or no changes in processes, performance, or products, take note of this in a separate audit report and determine a new corrective action. Continue this pattern until things improve.

Company audits are the key to ensuring efficient processes and quality products and services. So use the checklist above to make sure that you do everything to perform a successful audit for your company.

Check out CPV Manufacturing’s blog for more industry tips.

Quality Assurance vs. Quality Control: Which is Right for You?

Quality assurance (QA) and quality control (QC) can help manufacturers create great products. But contrary to popular belief, QA and QC aren’t the same. Each of these processes is designed to improve specific stages of the manufacturing process.

Read on to learn more about the difference between quality assurance and quality control.

Quality Assurance

Quality Assurance vs. Quality Control Quality assurance monitors production operations and helps to improve the manufacturing process and prevent defects in the finished product. Common QA tasks include process planning, checklists, and systems operation audits.

Everyone on the company’s production team is responsible for QA. This means that anyone who comes in contact with the product in any part of the production process must ensure that the product being created meets the appropriate standards.

QA can streamline manufacturing processes and have systems operate more efficiently. As a result, QA also helps to increase production revenue and minimize overall operation costs.

Quality Control

Quality control is a process that ensures products meet all company and government standards before entering the market. QC tasks are performed when the development and creation of a product is complete. These tasks consist of inspecting and testing the finished product.

Quality Assurance vs. Quality Control Companies designate a specific team that’s solely responsible for QC. This team will look over the finished items and test each one for errors and defects.

Overall, QC is meant to benefit the customer. Ensuring that all finished products are compliant with every appropriate standard helps to make sure that your customers get the high-quality product they need. This can lead to repeat business, a growing consumer base, and a better reputation for your company.

On top of that, QC can help your manufacturing company to avoid product recalls due to safety issues or improperly constructed parts. Recalls are known to be costly for many businesses. For example, CNN Money reported that General Motors spent $4.1 billion in repairs, victim compensation, and other expenses when 30.4 million of its cars and trucks were recalled in 2015.

Quality Assurance vs. Quality Control

QA and QC are beneficial to all parts of production, from start to finish. That’s why it’s best to implement both QA and QC tasks.

As stated, performing both QA and QC processes benefits your company and your customers. When QA audits and checklists are implemented, problems in production are spotted and resolved more frequently, resulting in a more seamless and efficient manufacturing process as well as fewer defects in the finished product.

When you add QC inspections and tests to your processes, you can guarantee that the product your customer gets is of the highest quality to ensure complete consumer satisfaction.

QA and QC may be two different processes, but when used together, both can help your company to produce better products, minimize costs, and improve customer retention rates.

For more tips on how to improve your manufacturing company, check out CPV Manufacturing’s blog.

Developing an Effective Quality Inspection Process for Your Plant

Developing an effective quality inspection process is one of the key components to success for your plant. There are many ways to create an effective process to ensure optimum plant performance and quality. Here are a few listed below.

Implement Mobile Devices

Manual quality inspections have provided great benefits to plants over the years, but no longer. The development of new, more advanced mobile technologies has given plants a more convenient and effective way to perform quality inspection processes.

By implementing mobile devices within your plant, the production process is streamlined and simplified to deliver greater workflow capabilities and increased support when needed. The devices will also be able to detect issues faster so you can resolve all problems at a timelier pace.

Most importantly, the use of mobile devices reduces the likelihood of human error because it provides consistency and better integrity in data collection. As a result, the plant experiences higher quality performance and overall lower cost-of-quality delivery.

Ensure Complete Solutions

Oftentimes, when an issue is detected within a plant’s system, only its symptoms are fixed. However, to ensure an effective quality inspection process, it’s important to address the root of the issue rather than just the symptoms.

To do this, plants must run more extensive tests to determine the source of the minor issues the system is facing. Once the major problem has been identified, it’s imperative that you fix it as soon as possible. Delaying the fix will only lead to more trouble and can even cause system failure.

Use a Preventative Maintenance Plan

Quality Inspection To better ensure quality in plant performance and production, it’s critical to have and follow a preventative maintenance plan. This makes sure that your systems get the proper services they need to keep them running smoothly.

Some of these services include routine adjustments, replacing worn parts, and performance tests. Each of these preventative maintenance procedures will help you to spot and repair problems quickly and keeps all systems running efficiently. Plus they’ll improve overall quality and minimize costs.

Keep the Customer in Mind

All plants want to make sure that the products they create are of the highest quality, even if that means paying additional costs. However, many tend to forget the customer and what they want in this situation. So plants pay extra to ensure quality products that consumers may not be interested in.

To avoid this, it’s important to understand a customer’s voice and opinions. Doing this will allow you to produce the quality product consumers want. Above all, this can minimize overall costs, as it prevents you from spending extra money on unnecessary enhancements.

Developing an effective quality inspection process for your plant will not only yield a better product, but it will also improve efficiency, costs, and overall plant performance. So be sure to follow the steps above to help you develop an effective quality inspection process.

CPV Manufacturing provides high-quality valves and fittings to help plants perform optimally and efficiently. To learn more about our valves, fittings, and other products, contact us today.

How the Energy Industry is Affecting Employment in the U.S.: The DOE’s First Annual National Energy Employment Analysis

In March of 2016, the U.S. Department of Energy release its first annual analysis of how changes in America’s energy profile are affecting national employment in multiple energy sectors. The U.S. Energy and Employment Report (USEER) uses a combination of existing energy employment data and a new survey of energy sector employers and provides a look at the national current energy employment landscape.

employment in U.S. Below are a few key findings from the report:

3.64 million Americans work in traditional energy industries, including production, transmission, distribution, and storage.
Of these, 600,000 employees contribute to the production of low-carbon electricity, including renewable energy, nuclear energy and low emission natural gas.
An additional 1.9 million Americans are employed, in whole or in part, in energy efficiency.
Roughly 30 percent of the 6.8 million employees in the U.S. construction industry work on energy or building energy efficiency projects.

In terms of jobs for the future, the USEER found that several energy industries have projected increases in new jobs. Responding to the USEER survey of employers, the energy efficiency sector predicted hiring rates of 14 percent in 2016, or almost 260,000 new hires. Projected hiring rates were at 5 percent within the electric power generation and fuels sector, reflecting overall growth despite a loss of employment in 2015 in the oil and natural gas extraction sectors. Transmission, wholesale distribution, and storage firms anticipate 4 percent employment growth in 2016. Solar energy firms predicted 15 percent job growth over the next year.

In addition to the findings of the USEER, CNNMoney also reports that solar jobs in the U.S. have more than doubled in five years. This also means that there are more people working in solar energy than at oil rigs and gas fields. The solar energy industry employs about 209,000 people for jobs that include solar panel installers, designers, engineers, sales folks and managers.

CNNMoney details, “Americans overall are just starting to see wage growth pick up, but solar workers have already seen paychecks improve. In December, wages in the United States rose 2.5% compared to a year prior. Solar installers are making $21 an hour on average, up 5% from a year ago — or double the national average, according to the Solar Foundation.”

CPV Manufacturing is a leader in the valve and fittings industry. We create innovative and reliable valves and fittings for gas and energy plants. Browse our valves and fittings online or contact us directly for more information.

How to Uncover the Hidden Operating Costs of Manufacturing Plants

When operating a manufacturing plant, it’s important to be aware of all of the costs that are associated with running it. There’s been a need for management to become aware of the hidden operating costs that are accruing and being overlooked, which causes a big impact on the bottom line.

hidden operating costs Uncovering otherwise overlooked data can help manufacturing plants understand certain costs or reasons that they’re being inefficient. Using tools to monitor what you’re spending money on and how much, as well as data reporting to collect and analyze this information, can help you uncover hidden costs. There are different methods to learn about these costs, and it’s important to find the one that’s right for your business.

Learn more about how to get to the bottom of the hidden operating costs that your plant has been dealing with.

Audit Your Energy Use to Uncover Hidden Operating Costs

Incorporate an energy auditing program in your manufacturing plant to find out exactly how much electricity you’re using. Plants are becoming more energy efficient due to reducing emissions as well as to cutting down on their costs.

hidden operating costs Paul Twite of 24-7 Power, an electrical consulting and engineering service company, tells ReliablePlant about the three-step approach that helps companies lower their energy bills. These three steps are reviewing utility bills; using thermal imagers to scan the electrical, mechanical, process, and HVAC systems and building envelope; and monitoring power consumption and other aspects of energy use.

Here’s a breakdown of each step:

Reviewing utility bills: The main objective here is to find out where the energy you’re using is going. Utility meters aren’t always one hundred percent correct, and they can malfunction over time. Part of the energy auditing process is to double check the utility and make sure that it’s operating correctly and giving a proper read.
Analysis and identifying problems: The data will be analyzed, which will then lead to determining if there are any issues with any of the systems. The auditor will also assess how efficient the lighting systems, HVAC systems, motors, and other plant equipment are.
Proposing and prioritizing solutions: This step involves addressing problems that were uncovered in the previous two steps. You’ll need to develop solutions and determine action items in order to improve the problem.

Stay in the Loop with New Technology

New technologies are constantly being created in order for you to reduce the amount of energy that you use within your plants. Staying aware of these new advances can help you find opportunities to incorporate them in your own plant. Be on the lookout for solar-powered tools or energy-efficient lighting and determine where they could fit.

Manufacturing plants are spending more on electricity than they should be. The good news is that there are ways to determine if you’re spending more than you should be, and there are always plenty of ways to reduce these high energy costs.

If you’re interested in high-quality valves and fittings, click here to contact CPV Manufacturing.

Innovative and Diverse Financing Is the Key to Unlocking Market Opportunities

Global manufacturers are using innovative financing to seize market opportunities, and manufacturers across the world are reporting a need to invest in new generation technology. According to Process Industry Informer, this investment in technology will allow them to meet four key sector challenges:

Increase production capacity and flexibility to meet changing demand and drive sales
Improve client service quality while reducing production costs
Improve competitive positioning through improved product quality and broader product range
Optimize efficiency, cost control, and manufacturing agility through automation and digitalization

Innovative financing techniques are helping to drive growth in industry, healthcare, and infrastructure by investing in the digitalization of processes and technologies.

What Is Digitalization?

It enables the output of real-time performance data from processes and systems. When these data are analyzed, they can be used to improve productivity and efficiency. This will lead to higher cost savings and a competitive advantage for businesses.

Why Is It Important to Have a Diverse Range of Financing Techniques?

Finance Talk For manufacturers to meet their challenges, they’re diversifying their range of financing techniques so they can afford innovative digitalized technology.

Asset finance is seen as a key investment because it can accommodate the total cost of ownership approach to key technology. Payments can then be adjusted to fit the expected savings or gains that the new technology brings.

Having numerous financing techniques is important for manufacturers as they look to technology for effectiveness in their business. When there are multiple technological advances, it’s important that there’s flexible and appropriate funding for the public and private organizations to embrace digitalization.

In the US, the diverse financing sources provided allow consumers and businesses to manage their risks in a more efficient manner and lower their cost of capital. This diversity also allows consumers and businesses to align their needs to sources. It also is beneficial since each financing source can provide a different set of sources.

How Can I Tailor Financing Methods?

As organizations adopt a diverse range of financing techniques, it becomes necessary to tailor them to that organization. A whitepaper by Siemens details these methods as “total cost of ownership financing, performance-based financing, energy efficient technology financing, multiple jurisdiction financing and solutions to enable ongoing investment with built-in points of refreshment.” Specialist financiers with expertise and knowledge in certain industries would assist you to customize your support to specific technology applications and customer requirements.

According to the Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America, an efficient and diverse financial system facilitates economic growth, based on a study that included a large number of countries. The financial system facilitates this economic growth by “facilitating trade, facilitating risk management for various individual and businesses, mobilizing resources and obtaining information, evaluating businesses and individuals based on this information and allocating capital.”

It’s important to consider diverse financing to ensure your business unlocks market opportunities.

Contact CPV Manufacturing to learn more about our products.

US Leads the Charge in Global Market for Medical Gas Equipment

It’s expected that the global market for medical gases and equipment will grow in the US, with an estimated compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8% from 2012 to 2018. It’s also predicted that the market’s value will increase over 40%, from $5.3 billion in 2011 to $9 billion in 2018.

Globally, the medical gas equipment market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 8% over the next six years to reach $5.3 billion in 2020. North America is still in the lead for the worldwide medical gas equipment market by 40% to 50%. It’s been estimated that North America’s demand for medical services is the reason for the increase.

Read on to find out more about what’s causing the US to lead the growth in medical gases and equipment.

Recent Drivers of Growth

US Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) Safety and Innovation Act

This act originated in the US but will help drive growth globally. It accomplishes four major goals for the industry:

It establishes designated medical gases with the protection of approved drug status for the common purse medical gases and mixtures.
If a company develops a new medical gas, the act provides property protection.
A certification process is established for designated medical gases to be produced.
It requires the FDA to consult with the industry about the need for regulations.

The implementation of the US Food and Drugs Administration Safety and Innovation Act has shown a boost the medical and healthcare infrastructure. As a result, there’s a rise of disposable incomes and consumer awareness.

Opening of Doe Canyon Helium Facility in Colorado

As the US celebrates the opening of Doe Canyon helium facility in Colorado, this event can be recognized as another driver of growth in the market for medical gases and equipment.

The Doe Canyon helium facility is the only plant that can extract helium from a gas stream composed mainly of carbon dioxide. Helium is widely used in the medical field and is necessary for MRIs, breathing atmospheres for deep diving, and unique blood gas mixtures.

Helium is in short supply, so Doe Canyon is contributing to the medical gas market in a big way. The market now welcomes an additional 230 million standard cubic feet of helium annually.

It will also deliver helium to customers by liquefying purified helium on site.

The medical gas equipment market is growing rapidly and predicted to see even further growth in the future. Supporting this growth is CPV Manufacturing, offering the most sustainable valves and fittings in the market.

CPV Manufacturing serves the following industries: shipbuilding, petrochemical, and industrial gases. In these industries, valves and fittings must be high quality and perform efficiently and accurately. A faulty product could result in disastrous damage, and that’s why companies in these industries rely on CPV for their non-failing valves and fittings.

Click here to contact CPV Manufacturing and learn more about their products.