Ready. Set. Reshore. The Challenges (And Rewards) Of Onshoring

As a contract manufacturer, Concept2Manufacturing Partner Noreen King has dedicated her career to building and sustaining a company in an industry that, until recently, had structured its business model around sending the majority of its contracting business overseas.

But put a finger to the wind, and things seem to be shifting. That's just what King observed in a recent article published in Manufacturing Business Technology. In the article, King pointed out a number of important statistics:

• By the end of 2014, it is predicted that 20 percent of Asia-sourced finished goods and assemblies consumed in the U.S. will have shifted from China to the Americas (source:Gartner, December 2011).
• Companies focusing on reducing inventories and improving just-in-time delivery practices are making the liabilities presented by global supply chains a driving force in this shift (source: Bloomberg Businessweek, February 2012).

To meet the growing demand that reshoring will bring, contract manufacturers here in the U.S. should focus on two things: Reducing the lead-time of production and improving supply chains. King's recommendations on how to do just that can be found by following this link.

High-tech Talent: Why Know-how is No Longer Enough

A few days ago, Manufacturing.net published Concept2Manufacturing Partner Tom Sons' article on attracting — and retaining — high-tech talent.

Here's an excerpt from his article: 

Recently, I came across a number of stats that, for those of us in the manufacturing sector, paint a very bright picture of the foreseeable future. If, like me, you keep an eye on trends and an ear to the ground for good news, of particular interest to you might be a study conducted by the State of California Employment Development Department, which found that, by the year 2022, commercial and industrial engineers will see a 10.3 percent employment increase in Silicon Valley alone.

While this study centers on data sourced from Silicon Valley manufacturers, by no means should these results be considered limited to this area. After all, as manufacturing professionals throughout the country know, the above statistics aren’t necessarily unique to Silicon Valley. In fact, perform a quick search on the term, “talent war,” and one thing becomes clear: hiring the right talent to fill a position in technology is as challenging today as it’s ever been.

Gone are the days when simply posting a job online is enough to identify the ideal candidate. Instead, as manufacturing employers are now coming to discover, knowing how to spot qualified talent by looking beyond work experience, training and education can make all the difference.

To read more, and to learn Tom's top three steps for finding and keeping tech talent, hop on over to the full article here.

Silicon Valley business owners form partnership to provide end-to-end manufacturing services designed to reduce costs, speed time to market

With HP, Symantec and others making headlines recently as details of each companies’ breaking apart are released, news of eight Silicon Valley professionals joining forces to provide end-to-end manufacturing services may have a counterbalancing effect.

Then again, the principals behind Concept2Manufacturing, a new Silicon Valley partnership comprising of seven companies, including original equipment manufacturing firm Evolve Manufacturing Technologies; design, engineering and manufacturing firm SMP Technologies; Leap Design Group; Dependable Plastics, a plastic fabrication company; reliability engineering firm Ops A La Carte; microprocessor-based hardware and software design firm Microsystems Development Technologies; engineering recruitment firm Solo Point Solutions; PR firm Schott Communications; and veteran sales consultant, Tom Smith, have a history of going against the norm to create opportunities and advance what’s possible in their respective fields.

“I’ve long been a proponent of onshoring manufacturing,” noted partner Noreen King from her office in Fremont the other day, “not only for the favorable impact onshoring has on our economy, but also for the way it simplifies supply chain operations and makes doing business more affordable. This new partnership will make the case for onshoring even more compelling.”

C2M Business Development Consultant Tom Smith agreed, adding, “What we’ve done here is to offer a one-stop-shopping alternative for bringing products to market, from design concept to product completion. That we’re located in Silicon Valley — at the heart of so much innovation — will make it easier than ever for companies to oversee the process of bringing their products to market.”

Concept2Manufacturing, which was formed in October 2014, will work with funded start ups as well as more established companies in the medical, semiconductor, defense, and other industries. Its goal will be to simplify (and make more efficient) the supply chain process and mitigate the inherent risks that global supply chains pose to companies by ensuring that every phase of the product lifecycle is completed right here in Silicon Valley (as opposed to China and other overseas locations, where still much of the work is done). This proximity will give customers more immediate control over the production process and will have a significant impact on reducing the cost of bringing products to market.

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About Concept2Manufacturing:

Concept2Manufacturing is a Silicon Valley-based end-to-end design, engineering and manufacturing partnership established to simplify the process of bringing new products to the marketplace.

For more information, please contact Pamela Schott via email: mpamelaschott@gmail.com or at 818 205 3983.