Suggested Criteria for Selecting Siting and Buying Smarter (SBS) OEMs
1. Characteristics of the company:
a. They are interested in reevaluating offshoring.
b. Large, e.g.:
i. 500+ employees locally
c. Manufactures locally
d. Historically manufactured more locally, but offshored some.
e. Civic minded. Is committed to supporting the community.
f. Is committed to minimizing its environmental impact
g. On the list of 181 CEOs that signed the Business Roundtable Statement that stakeholders now also include employees, suppliers and community.
h. Lowest Price is not overwhelmingly their highest priority. Longer term focus.
i. Financially solid.
j. Private is probably better than public.
k. Sells consumer products that could become Made-in-USA with some reshoring.
l. U.S/N. America is still their largest market.
m. Level of automation: High
n. Capacity: Available
o. Creativity/flexibility: High
p. IP risk sensitive
2. Characteristics of the products/components imported by the company:
a. High volume of imports, ideally not from customers’ own factories offshore
b. Not too commoditized. Lowest price is not the overwhelming priority.
c. Cause pain at the company: quality, delivery, IP risk, travel, excess inventory, late night telephone calls, etc.
d. Automation and lean would help make more competitive here
e. Not labor intense. Direct Labor ideally no more than 10 to 15% of mfg. cost if produced locally.
f. Company or contractors have the know-how to make the product
g. Demand is seasonal or volatile.
h. IP risk.
i. U.S. substantially dependent on imports.
j. Critical or essential product, e.g. PPE.
k. Could become Made-in-USA with some reshoring.
l. Freight cost is high relative to labor cost.
m. Subject to Trump tariffs, esp. on Chinese imports.
n. Material: Standard such as bar or plate rather than castings or forging
o. Tooling: Standard/catalog or simple custom, rather than complex, expensive injection molds and dies.
p. Design change is frequent.
q. Electricity or natural gas intense. E.g. die casting, plastics, some chemicals.
r. Delivery is often critical, requiring air freight for imports.
s. High level of regulatory compliance.
t. Existing reshoring successes nationally in the product category.
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12/27/20 Harry Moser/Founder & President/Reshoring Initiative/harry.moser@reshorenow.org