Reshoring: A Progress Note

choi

Don Lee, After Decades of Exodus, Companies Returning Production to the US. Los Angeles Times, May 13, 2014.
www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-returning-jobs-20140513-story.html

Quote:

"Harry Moser, an MIT-trained [but not now affiliated with MIT] engineer who tracks the inflow of jobs, estimates that last year marked the first time since the offshoring trend began that factory jobs returning to the US matched the number lost, at about 40,000 each. 'Offshoring and 're-shoring' were roughly in balance — I call that victory'

"The boom in natural gas production in the US, largely driven by fracking and other new drilling techniques, has led to a 25% decrease in gas prices in the US, contrasted with a 138% increase in China, Boston Consulting found.

"Expansion in the domestic apparel industry remains unusual because the labor-intensive work can be done in many low-wage countries. But in other industries, a growing number of domestic and foreign companies * * * are opting to build or expand their facilities in the US, particularly in the Southeast, where labor costs are relatively low.

Note:
(a) Legend of photo 2: "Generac Power Systems has brought a portion of its manufacturing back to its Whitewater, Wis, plant -- creating about 80 jobs in the town of about 14,500 people."

Whitewater, Wisconsin
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitewater,_Wisconsin
(a city; home of the University of Wisconsin–Whitewater)

(b) "many US manufacturers report growing problems with quality control of goods made in China. 'We got to the point where everything we were bringing in had to be inspected,' says Lonnie Kane, president of Los Angeles apparel maker Karen Kane, noting that his company used to check just 10% of goods from China.

Lonnie is a short form of Alonzo. The latter is Old German for "ready for battle."
(c) "What began [in 2001; Chinese produced it more cheaply] as a $100 gap in the cost of producing an alternator narrowed as the Chinese yuan jumped in value and Chinese wages and other costs soared. The tipping point came when Generac had enough sales to justify investing millions of dollars in new equipment for the Whitewater plant. The company can now produce an alternator with one worker in the time it took four workers in China. Although a small price gap remains, [Generac Power Systems' CEO Aaron] Jagdfeld figured that having greater control over delivery would make up the difference."

alternator
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternator