The wind is dying down, the corn has tasseled, and the humidity makes it feel like a wet sauna in your car. Something that amazes me every summer is how quickly plants such as corn grow. It’s truly amazing the changes that take place in just two months time. Fast growth is smooth for some things, like corn, but difficult for other things, like oak trees. While these two plants are obviously completely different, they can grow right next to each other in the same soil, with the same inputs.

Growing a business or a product line, in some ways, can be likened to growing plants. One could start with the same inputs but depending on what seed (or market) is in the ground, can create wildly different results.

Here at United Equipment Accessories (UEA), we have experienced growth in our hydraulic swivel product line. This growth is two-fold; we have an increased customer base and our existing customer base is purchasing more substantial amounts of product due to a favorable market.

Increased growth initially was very welcomed, as we had resources available to handle the increased production demand. The growth quickly consumed our additional resources and left us needing to increase our throughput.

Due to the nature of our hydraulic swivel product line, quick growth is difficult. It’s not as simple as throwing money at the problem or scaling up production of a simple widget. It’s not as quick as growing corn.

Our hydraulic swivel growth is more like the growth of an oak tree. The complexity of our parts and production methods means growth is slower, yet stronger. The robust processes in our production as well as the bonds between employees and even our customers, is more like that of hardwood from an oak tree then that of cellulose from a corn plant.

Even though growth is challenging, we have all the right inputs for growth at UEA. In fact, we recently added a night production shift as a part of our growth process.

We are growing our business to have the strength and resilience of an oak tree, which can weather storms much better than a corn plant.