Equipment at the next size
Updated
Time the process before buying anything; the answer is almost never a bigger mixer.
Buy against measured hours
Minutes per hundred bottles for filling, capping, sealing, labeling and packing.
Then spend against the largest, which in nearly every hand operation is labeling or filling rather than making.
The filling line
In order of return: a gravity or piston filler, a capper with torque control, an induction sealer, a label applicator.
The filler and the applicator between them usually halve the hours.
The torque capper is the quality purchase rather than the speed one: inconsistent torque is the single commonest cause of leaks in transit.
Mixing
A larger vessel with a proper overhead stirrer, and a pump rather than lifting.
A high-shear disperser only if a formula needs one, and thickeners are the case that does.
A jacketed or heated vessel only if you make something that needs heat, which most water-based cleaners do not.
Bunded storage for drums, which is a fire-code and spill-containment requirement rather than a convenience.
What to resist
A big melter-equivalent, which in this craft is a large heated vessel nobody needs.
Anything specific to one bottle size, until that size is certain.
And automation ahead of volume: a filling machine that needs cleaning between products costs more time than it saves on small batches, and this category has a lot of product changeovers.