Justin Braford
U.S. companies are looking to move their operations closer to the markets they serve. There has been a large amount of companies moving production out of the U.S. With supply chain becoming more critical to businesses, it makes sense to bring their operations closer to the people who are buying from them.
Flooding in Thailand has caused a huge problem for supply chain workers for certain companies. This made it extremely hard for them to transport their goods outside of Thailand, resulting in loss of money. This was a big wake up call for businesses "off-shoring" their work. There are specific hazards that come with the location of manufacturing. Ford, Caterpillar, and General Electric Co. are just a few examples of companies bringing back their manufacturing to the United States. Quality and costs of supply chain are the two biggest factors for bringing companies back to the U.S., according to Michael LoGuidoce, a managing director for CBIZ Valuation Group LLC., In Chicago. Geoff Taylor, a former risk management director for Nike, also believed these were the two single biggest factors.
Bringing production closer to home simplifies the entire supply chain process. There is no doubt this is helping bring jobs back to America. It is important to note that the supply chain industry is still fairly new and is still a work in process, so to speak. There will be many ways to become more cost-effective, and more consistent in the near future.
Zolkos, Rodd. "Quality control of supply chain drives firms to bring production closer." Business Insurance, 4 Aug. 2014, p. 0016. General OneFile, ezproxy.msu.edu/login?url=http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=msu_main&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA377652107&it=r&asid=f258287e2533e51f3d6aeeee5ef62f11. Accessed 3 Apr. 2017.
This was a very interesting post! I have always noticed how most US companies' location of manufacturing is outside the United States, but never thought about how much more the company would benefit from it being in the US. It seems more time and cost efficient to have the entire companies' production occurring in the US!
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment! Yeah, most people are so used to seeing "Made in China" on every product, they don' t think twice about how much went into getting that good from over seas in Asia to the store in America. Even though this brings business to the supply chain field, it also can take away from business in America where the good could be built for cheaper and still shipped using supply chains.
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