How do you achieve production target with a shortage of manpower?

A general question without knowing details of your production lines and root cuz of manpower shortage pushing me answer in general too.in your case mainly this challenge boils down to a decision of product mix, which you must decide which mix of products you are going to offer your customers with the limited manpower available to you.

I advice you outsource additional manpower externally to handle routine activities, if your internal staff fully committed. In addition, you have to being able make a products efficiently by:

- Identify the bottlenecks & eliminate the bottlenecks.

- Schedule production to maximize the efficient use of the resources & to avoid a buildup of inventory.

  Regards, 

First of all, we have to make sure that production target should be ambitious and realistic with the given manpower and adequate training has to be provided to them in order to expand their skill-sets and exposure.

Although its not a good sign and shows a gap in manpower planning at strategic level. However, an adequate forecast has to be made on regular basis in order avoid such blackouts in future.