Right-Shoring, Not Re-Shoring

Right-Shoring, Not Re-Shoring

At the moment it is easy to be fixated on moving manufacturing and supply chain from China to the US, but is that the right solution and an appropriate response to where we find ourselves in the midst of a pandemic and geopolitical disruption? Truth be told, it is not as simple as the US or China, or anywhere else. And truth be told, it is not about re-shoring alone. It is about right-shoring!

Re-shoring means a wholesale shift of manufacturing back to the US, exiting China regardless of the value proposition that manufacturing there offers.

But we don't want to build China's manufacturing ecosystem in the US. What we want in the US is the right manufacturing and the manufacturing jobs. That means re-shoring the right industries and the right products. 

Right-shoring is something quite different. What right-shoring suggests is that there are a set of variables that should be considered when selecting the ideal manufacturing geography. Those variables will likely include volume, technology, lead-time, price, certification. There are actually a whole lot of variables that need to be considered.

We live in a global economy where many products are produced in several locations and shipped to even more locations to be