On Demand Assembly 3PL: Scaling Workflows Only When You Need Them

When assembly work shows up in bursts

Most brands do not need constant high volume assembly. They need it in bursts. A new product launches. A retailer asks for a special configuration. A promotion takes off. Suddenly there is a mountain of prep work that must be done fast and accurately. On demand assembly 3PL exists for exactly those moments. It gives you access to serious operational muscle without forcing you to build that capacity in house.

Many founders look for this kind of flexibility only after they have been burned. As Maureen Milligan explains, "Most of the customers who come to us from another 3PL, their challenges have always been access to their data, order accuracy and efficiency, and basically just meeting the committed requirements." She adds, "Even when they were getting their new inventory delivered to the warehouses, they weren't getting received and on the shelves in a timely fashion to satisfy customer orders." If a provider struggles with the basics, they will not survive on demand assembly.

Why assembly demand comes in waves

Assembly work rarely arrives in neat, predictable amounts. Often it comes in projects. A retailer wants a new bundle on shelves by a certain date. The marketing team plans a limited time offer with custom packaging. A channel partner asks for special labels. Each of these moments suddenly multiplies your assembly needs.

Retail rules make those projects even more demanding. Joel Malmquist points out, "Walmart's pretty intense with their labeling rules. Dick's Sporting Goods is the same; if you don't do it right, you get those massive chargeback." On demand assembly 3PL has to do more than work quickly. It has to work correctly.

Then there are the spikes nobody sees coming. Holly Woods describes this exact situation: "Sometimes these smaller customers come and work with G10, and um they might be shipping you know 100, 200 orders a day. Then something goes viral on social media, and all of a sudden the doors are being blown off on orders." When that happens, an on demand assembly team has to step in fast.

Why traditional 3PLs are not built for on demand assembly

Most 3PLs are geared toward steady state operations. They are good at moving the same types of orders every day. On demand assembly breaks that rhythm. It requires project style thinking, flexible staffing, and systems that can change quickly.

Technology is often the first point of failure. Bryan Wright warns, "A bad WMS system will not track inventory 100%, as it should." That is already risky in a normal environment. In project style assembly, it is deadly. He explains what better looks like: "A good WMS tracks inventory through the warehouse at every point that you touch it."

On demand work also demands fast changes to workflows and labels. Bryan describes the advantage of deep internal control over the system: "With G10 we can make that change extremely quickly because we have our own development staff." Without that ability, a simple new assembly requirement could sit in a ticket queue for weeks.

The founder's question: what happens under pressure

On demand assembly sounds attractive in theory. In practice, founders usually care about one thing: what happens when the deadline is tight. Will the 3PL actually get it done when it matters most?

Joel shares the way one fast growing customer put it: "Say Target drops 10 POs and gives us 48 hours to turn it around? Is G10 the right partner for us to navigate through that and execute at a high level?" That is the heart of on demand assembly. It is not about slow, steady work. It is about fast, accurate bursts.

His answer comes down to structure and mindset. As Joel explains, "We are able to help them get through that big surge and develop and grow their business as it comes in." That means reprioritizing workloads, moving inventory if needed, and flexing labor so that deadlines stop being existential threats.

Holly gives a vivid real world example: "Our supervisor, warehouse manager, and several employees worked that entire day into the night, came back in in the morning at 5 a.m. to make sure that we had the routing completed for that pickup for Target." That is what on demand capacity looks like when the calendar does not care about your schedule.

On demand only works with real visibility

When assembly jobs spin up and down quickly, you cannot afford to guess where things stand. On demand assembly only feels safe when you can see what is happening as it happens.

Bryan describes the tools that support that level of insight: "We have portals that show you the data. We have history that shows you all of that tracking. It shows the product landed on the dock at 8 o'clock." With that data, brands can monitor project style work as closely as day to day operations.

Maureen explains how customers use this visibility: "They can actually watch those progressions going on." That means a founder can follow a special assembly job from receiving, through work in process, to completed units without waiting for end of day reports.

How on demand assembly supports channel expansion

On demand assembly shows its value most clearly when brands move into new channels. New channels often mean new packaging, labeling, or bundles. Instead of rebuilding internal processes, brands can hand those project bursts to a 3PL that knows how to spin up temporary workflows.

On marketplaces like Amazon, labeling and packaging are tightly enforced. Jen Myers explains a critical part of the work: "We also help them label products correctly." She highlights the risk of getting it wrong: "If you send stuff to Amazon that has the wrong labels on, or it's not to their specs, or the wrong dimensions, you get chargebacks basically they fine you!" That is not the kind of mistake you want to make on a large, time boxed project.

On the retail and wholesale side, on demand assembly can compress the time from plan to launch. John Pistone shares one example: "We were able to turn that into a 15, 20 million dollar business in a year because we were able to compress the time of launch." Behind that compressed timeline are people and systems doing a lot of custom work very quickly.

Culture as the engine behind flexible capacity

On demand assembly is powered by systems, but it is driven by people. You cannot ask a team to work late, change priorities, and pick up new workflows unless the culture supports that kind of effort and treats people fairly.

Mark Becker captures the attitude at the top: "Yeah, I live in the grind every day." Founders recognize that energy. It matters when the work is hard and the deadline is close.

Bryan describes the standard he expects: "You go 110% and make sure that when they're done, this project is something they're going to remember." That level of commitment turns on demand assembly from a sales phrase into a real capability.

And when things do not go perfectly, Maureen explains how issues are handled: "We say, We made a mistake, this is what happened, this is how we're correcting, it and this is how we're going to make it right by you." That combination of effort and accountability is what keeps brands comfortable handing important projects to a 3PL.

Why on demand assembly 3PL becomes a strategic tool

On demand assembly is more than extra labor. It is a way to separate your growth from your fixed overhead. Instead of hiring and training an internal assembly team for peaks that might only happen a few times a year, you tap into a 3PL that can bring capacity online only when needed.

That structure encourages experimentation. It gets easier to say yes to limited runs, retailer exclusives, and new bundle ideas when you are not worried about how to staff the next surge.

Connor Perkins connects it back to fundamentals: "To be successful and grow rapidly you have to sell a lot of your products. That boils down to having a good product, but also having a good supply chain." On demand assembly 3PL strengthens the supply chain at exactly the points where stress is highest.

If your team dreads every launch window because of the strain it puts on operations, on demand assembly may be the missing piece that lets your brand grow without burning itself out.