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> The global pandemic, which started in manufacturing-centric China, continues to disrupt supply chains and draw attention from politicians calling for a reshor

> The global pandemic, which started in manufacturing-centric China, continues to disrupt supply chains and draw attention from politicians calling for a reshoring of production. The United States is not alone; calls for reshoring can be heard around the world: in France, Germany, Australia, Japan, and South Korea. > But is reshoring the answer to a nation’s manufacturing woes? Not completely. Better than reshoring is the broader concept of resilience — a manufacturing sector that can adjust in real time to supply chain disruptions anywhere while minimizing any loss to customers. > The pandemic is inducing actions by U.S. manufacturers to enhance the resilience of their supply chains. And the government is not standing idly by. Relevant excerpts on the topic from [The Emerging American Industrial Policy By Keith B. Belton ](https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2021/08/the-emerging-american-industrial-policy/ https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2021/08/the-emerging-amer...)

XorNot 5y ago
Supply chain resiliency has less to do with "reshoring" then it does about common-sense redundancy to just-in-time manufacturing chains. Toyota understood this and has faired better then most through the pandemic, whereas most others stalled out and had no real recovery plans. It's also crucial to note that the car companies in particular have managed to demonstrate a shocking lack of foresight here: half the problem with the chip shortage was executive panic at gasp maybe having old stock on hand, and completely mispredicting that car sales would go up and not down.
smackeyacky 5y ago
Re-shoring something like electronics manufacturing is going to be quite difficult for those countries that outsourced it all to China. For starters, you need factories i.e. physical buildings. Pick and place machines, machine shops for making precision plastic moulds, the trained personnel to run them and re-shoring all the knowledge for how things work and how to keep them working. The entire supply chain for electronic components will also have to be re-shored as well. A lot of that depends on a local network effect (why Hong Kong was successful and why Shenzhen is successful). In Australia we still have small pockets of electronic manufacturing (most of which was decimated by Japanese imports in the 1970s) so we are 50+ years from when things like that were routinely made here and rebuilding that is not going to happen at the stroke of a pen, it's going to require a lot of investment. That is something governments used to do quite well but the neo-liberal political movement not only killed manufacturing in this country, but also makes it impossible to restart it. It costs me 1/10th of the price to have our circuit board made in China compared to the quotes I had from Australian factories. That is the kind of price difference that would kill my product stone dead.
- monocasa 5y ago
  Plastic injection molding tool design especially. It's not just capital intensive, but one of the deepest black arts I was adjacent to in my robotics days. I'm not sure I see a way to reshore that knowledge at any scale worth talking about without massive economic problems in the west. The way to learn (like any black art) is to start with simple designs and take on more and more complicated work, but the simplest designs are the ones with the lowest margins and the least worth reshoring. : \ Maybe the whole field changes with 3d metal printing getting cheaper allowing more experimentation by individuals and reducing the barrier to the field?
  - varjag 5y ago
    It sure takes talent (like in most technology endeavours) but it still can be found in good old Europe. Our Lithuanian ME contractor is nothing but stellar. However his career path was not trickle up from 3D printing but a traditional engineering school.
  - smackeyacky 5y ago
    I don't know how that is going to play out. The metal 3D printer I have seen was quite incredible with the things that could be made out of stainless steel powder but the price of them doesn't seem to be coming down at the rate we normally expect with electronics. I guess once somebody works out how to do it as a desk-side or small factory, high volume situation it might turn things around pretty rapidly on a precision injection mould but there is little incentive to develop such a thing while we still have access to the chinese market, even for complex moulds. You're right about injection mould design being a dark art, there is so much to be concerned about that just getting something to fall out of the mould cleanly might as well be magic.
  - seibelj 5y ago
    Western countries need to infiltrate their factories and steal their schematics and technologies.
    - monocasa 5y ago

XorNot 5y ago

Supply chain resiliency has less to do with "reshoring" then it does about common-sense redundancy to just-in-time manufacturing chains. Toyota understood this and has faired better then most through the pandemic, whereas most others stalled out and had no real recovery plans. It's also crucial to note that the car companies in particular have managed to demonstrate a shocking lack of foresight here: half the problem with the chip shortage was executive panic at gasp maybe having old stock on hand, and completely mispredicting that car sales would go up and not down.

smackeyacky 5y ago

Re-shoring something like electronics manufacturing is going to be quite difficult for those countries that outsourced it all to China. For starters, you need factories i.e. physical buildings. Pick and place machines, machine shops for making precision plastic moulds, the trained personnel to run them and re-shoring all the knowledge for how things work and how to keep them working. The entire supply chain for electronic components will also have to be re-shored as well. A lot of that depends on a local network effect (why Hong Kong was successful and why Shenzhen is successful). In Australia we still have small pockets of electronic manufacturing (most of which was decimated by Japanese imports in the 1970s) so we are 50+ years from when things like that were routinely made here and rebuilding that is not going to happen at the stroke of a pen, it's going to require a lot of investment. That is something governments used to do quite well but the neo-liberal political movement not only killed manufacturing in this country, but also makes it impossible to restart it. It costs me 1/10th of the price to have our circuit board made in China compared to the quotes I had from Australian factories. That is the kind of price difference that would kill my product stone dead.

monocasa 5y ago
Plastic injection molding tool design especially. It's not just capital intensive, but one of the deepest black arts I was adjacent to in my robotics days. I'm not sure I see a way to reshore that knowledge at any scale worth talking about without massive economic problems in the west. The way to learn (like any black art) is to start with simple designs and take on more and more complicated work, but the simplest designs are the ones with the lowest margins and the least worth reshoring. : \ Maybe the whole field changes with 3d metal printing getting cheaper allowing more experimentation by individuals and reducing the barrier to the field?
- varjag 5y ago
  It sure takes talent (like in most technology endeavours) but it still can be found in good old Europe. Our Lithuanian ME contractor is nothing but stellar. However his career path was not trickle up from 3D printing but a traditional engineering school.
- smackeyacky 5y ago
  I don't know how that is going to play out. The metal 3D printer I have seen was quite incredible with the things that could be made out of stainless steel powder but the price of them doesn't seem to be coming down at the rate we normally expect with electronics. I guess once somebody works out how to do it as a desk-side or small factory, high volume situation it might turn things around pretty rapidly on a precision injection mould but there is little incentive to develop such a thing while we still have access to the chinese market, even for complex moulds. You're right about injection mould design being a dark art, there is so much to be concerned about that just getting something to fall out of the mould cleanly might as well be magic.
- seibelj 5y ago
  Western countries need to infiltrate their factories and steal their schematics and technologies.
  - monocasa 5y ago