ASML’s rapidly increasing ambitions offer significant opportunities for Dutch high-tech suppliers. However, those who only invest in additional personnel, machinery, and square footage risk scaling up existing process problems alongside their growth. Sustainable growth therefore also requires a management system that detects deviations promptly, prioritises the correct improvements, and maintains lasting control over results.
Directeur | MBB
Contents: More capacity does not equate to scalability | From the right deviation to lasting results | Digitalisation makes control scalable | Conclusion
On 15 July 2026, ASML once again raised its expectations for 2026. While in April the company was still anticipating an annual turnover between €36 and €40 billion, the new expectation is between €43 and €45 billion. At the same time, ASML aims to increase the production capacity of EUV and DUV systems by approximately 30% per year in the coming years. This growth impacts the entire Dutch high-tech chain. Suppliers must not only produce more, but also maintain quality and delivery reliability during this growth. Thus, the next growth phase is not merely a capacity issue, but primarily a management issue.
An organisation can expand its production capacity without actually becoming more scalable.
If a process is already unstable at its current volume, these problems will not disappear by adding extra personnel, machinery, or production space. Deviations will occur more frequently, handovers will become more complex, and errors will become more costly.
Adding capacity without further developing the way of steering, improving, and controlling primarily increases the scale of existing problems.
The central question is therefore not only: How can we produce more?
But also: How do we ensure that our management system can grow with that expansion? It is precisely here that a broader view of continuous improvement offers guidance.
Controlled scaling does not begin with an improvement project, but with the question of which deviation truly threatens growth. Growth objectives must therefore first be translated into concrete operational performances, such as delivery reliability, first-time-right, lead time, and machine availability.
Performance management reveals where results are lagging. However, KPIs do not yet explain why this is happening. For this, managers must go to the shop floor and, together with employees, investigate which obstacles are blocking the desired performance.
Only when the problem is sufficiently understood does DMAIC begin. The method helps to define, measure, analyse, solve, and stabilise the chosen performance gap. DMAIC is thus a powerful mechanism for closing a problem, but it does not automatically determine which problem is strategically most important.
Management remains responsible even after Control. The improved process must continue to perform at the new level every day. This requires standard work, KPI monitoring, and timely follow-up on deviations.
As the organisation grows, the number of processes that need to be monitored also increases. Manual control quickly reaches its limit. Improvements do not always disappear because the solution was poor, but because it took too much time and attention to maintain the result.
As an organisation grows, the number of processes, KPIs, and deviations that need to be monitored also increases. Manual control therefore eventually reaches its limit.
Digitalisation reduces this management burden. Process data, MES, and sensors make deviations visible more quickly. Dashboards, Process Mining, and automated workflows help to identify bottlenecks earlier and follow up more quickly. Predictive analytics and AI can also signal quality, maintenance, and capacity risks earlier.
The value lies not in more data, but in shorter feedback loops: seeing earlier, understanding faster, and acting promptly. For this, it must be clear who owns what, who is authorised to intervene, and when escalation is necessary. Without this governance, digitalisation primarily leads to more dashboards and confusion.
Whether digitalisation truly helps depends not only on the technology, but primarily on the follow-up. These five questions show where the main weaknesses lie:
ASML’s growth offers significant opportunities for the Dutch high-tech chain. However, extra capacity alone is not enough. Suppliers must also be able to detect deviations more quickly, solve the right problems, and maintain lasting control over improvements. Digitalisation can help to make this scalable, provided it is clear who follows up on signals and makes decisions.
The most important question is therefore not only how much extra capacity an organisation can add, but primarily:
Do we have the leadership and management system to truly convert extra capacity into higher performance?
Therefore, anyone who wants to know where their own organisation is still vulnerable must look at how performance is managed, how improvements are chosen, and how results are secured. It is precisely there that the necessary steps to make growth more manageable become visible.