A Preliminary Overview of Ramp-Up Management Practices in Crisis Context

Abstract

Production ramp-up is a key stage in the product life cycle since it can determine whether a product’s launch into the market or the increase of production capacity succeeds or fails. Ramp-up as a phase of value creation, begins with the completion of a product’s design and ends with the reach of maximum production capacity. In today’s world, there is a significant advance in technology but simultaneously there is an increasing uncertainty as we have experienced with the Covid-19 crisis. Within this context, the importance of ramp-up management become more than ever evident. Whilst some products like face masks saw their demand increase drastically, some other companies had to shut off their production or switch to manufacture new products like hand sanitizers. Hence, it is critical today to have a successful ramp-up management in order to predict and meet clients’ demand in terms of quality and quantity. This paper aims to provide a set of guidelines for ramp-up management considering crisis context. The paper relies on an exploratory research coupling literature analysis and interviews among practitioners. The insights drawn from the literature and from the interviews are expected to provide decision makers with valuable guidance with regard to ramp-up management.