SunPower's Capacity Expansion: Demand, Drivers, and Impact Analysis

This discussion board post analyzes SunPower's strategic response to increased consumer demand for its solar power systems. The post highlights the company's decision to significantly increase its manufacturing capacity, driven by factors such as strong market trends and increased consumer demand. It examines the key drivers behind this demand, including the high quality and efficiency of SunPower's products, and the company's focus on innovation and expansion. The post also references a relevant Forbes article and integrates a biblical verse to provide a broader context to the business decisions made by SunPower. The assignment addresses the impact of the capacity increase, including the expansion of its storage business and increase in the value of its shares. The analysis provides a comprehensive overview of SunPower's growth, the factors influencing it, and the strategic steps taken to meet the increased demand in the solar market.

Running Head: OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT
OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT

2OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT
SunPower is a company designing, manufacturing and selling solar power systems to meet
demands in residential, business and global fields. As a result of strong consumer demand
paired with a turnaround in the markets worldwide, investments in solar power has been
increasing since 2013, SunPower has been forced to increase its production capacity.
SunPower has become one of the top names in the solar market. The company decided, and
increased its manufacturing capacity of solar products by 25% per year (Forbes, 2016).
It brought its total capacity to 1.8 GW, making it clear that the company's products are high
in demand. SunPower is expecting panel deployment of more than 100 MW during 2019 with
the expectation to ramp-up its capacity by 250MW. The company also aims at expanding the
storage business due to the continuous decline of battery costs. Additionally, in the year
2017, the price per share was increased by the company.
All of these increased capacity, development and expansion of the company has resulted from
the heightened demand of its products. The various features of the solar power systems of
SunPower makes it more desirable than the other solar power companies in the market at
present. It has the highest overall score among the other solar power panels, producing more
energy, covering larger space, reducing considerable amount of greenhouse gas emissions
and all these at a considerable cost. All these have led to increased demand from residential,
business and global consumers, forcing SunPower to increase its production capacity in turn.
This situation can be integrated with a bible verse of Proverbs 3:9-10 “Honor the Lord from
your wealth and from the first of all your produce; so your barns will be filled with plenty and
your vats will overflow with new wine.”

3OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT
References
Forbes.com (2016), Key Trends That Could Drive SunPower's Business In The Near Term
[Retrieved 05/04/2019 from
https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2018/11/13/key-trends-that-could-
drive-sunpowers-business-in-the-near-term/#389c3afd9754]