No matter where you are in your industry — OEM, component supplier, contract manufacturer, or end user — 2025 is likely to provide both challenges and opportunities.

For many, straddling the line of meeting current obligations while reimagining your products and services to meet unknown future demands is both an opportunity for growth and a potential for challenge.  There may appear to be plenty of opportunities when observing the need for cost effective and reliable indoor air quality, but the challenges also may provide a lens to better see where you can be of the most value to yourself and your customer.

At AJ Manufacturing, an international leader in the design and manufacturing of high-performance door and wall panel products, we’ve been preparing for the challenges of the coming year and hope there is value in sharing a few insights into what we see as the most critical elements for our mutual success.

Performance: It may be common knowledge for owners and managers who rely on air handling units (AHU) for their operations, but AHU performance and operating conditions continue to evolve faster than any other linear variable. Even in the face of this exponential change, manufacturers of any element of AHUs will still have to deliver beyond specified requirements, such as; enhanced insulating values, lower tolerance of air and water leakage, and higher values of conductive thermal resistance.  How you assure performance in the areas of security, reliability, ease of use, and elsewhere will be a substantial factor for success in 2025.

Flexible Specialization: The days of selecting components “off the shelf” are over. Manufacturers’ sophisticated design solutions will require suppliers to deliver extreme flexibility and customization of design, materials, scheduling, communication, and follow-through.  This new expectation will redefine both the traditional boundaries of OEM’s and suppliers, and the measurement of key performance indicators beyond the basic factors of cost, quality, and deadlines.

Capacity constraints: OEMs and suppliers of products and services continue to experience constraints related to shortage of labor, still-delicate supply chains, and logistical and regulatory barriers.

Cost reduction vs value generation: With the rapid pace of demand for HVACR products and services from data-related applications of all scales, cost management will be increasingly difficult. At AJ Manufacturing, we see a successful supplier as one that can be nimble and narrowly focused on generating unique and adaptive designs delivered on time.  Understanding the customer’s real challenges and delivering commensurate value  — not simply generic cost reduction — will be the new, true measure of success.

Building on ideas — whether yours or ours — with a purpose of solving problems has emerged as our greatest strength. In many ways we are not simply manufacturers or component suppliers, we are consultants, mechanics, witnesses, and experts dedicated to our customers’ success.  It just so happens that virtually all of our solutions involve a door, door frame, gasket, wall panel, and the satisfaction of an end-user and their customer.

We encourage you to learn more at our website or by contacting us directly.  We look forward to getting to know more about you and your projects in 2025.

Todd Carlson