We agree that many times reshoring makes economic sense.
Manufacturing is returning to the U.S. from offshore. We have gone from losing about 140,000 manufacturing jobs per year in 2003 to net breakeven in 2014 and 2015. That is huge progress to celebrate!
Companies are recognizing that with the use of the refined metrics of total cost of ownership (TCO) to uncover the hidden costs and risks of offshoring and by reducing costs with sustainable strategies such as robotics, innovation, automation and LEAN, they can increase competitiveness and manufacture in the U.S. profitably.
Of particular interest was the number of 2015 studies documenting the strength of the Reshoring trend:
• BCG: Multinational industries actively reshoring increased 140% from 7% in 2012 to 17% in 2015
• Medical Design Technology: 49% of medical device companies outsourced offshore. Almost half of those, 45%, are returning
• Plastics News: 70% of plastics industry manufacturers have or will soon reshore
• Alix Partners: U.S. is favored over Mexico 55% to 31%
• Walmart continues to make good progress towards its $250 billion 10 year goal
• Reshoring Initiative’s 2015 Data Report on the ReshoreNow dot org website
The Reshoring Initiative Can Help
In order to help companies decide objectively to reshore manufacturing back to the U.S. or offshore, the not-for-profit Reshoring Initiative’s free TCO Estimator can help corporations calculate the real P&L impact of reshoring or offshoring. TCO can be found on the ReshoreNow dot org website.
