In today’s competitive environment, OEMs are looking for opportunities to strengthen their supply chain while maintaining excellent product quality. To achieve this, many companies are relocating manufacturing closer to home – a process known as reshoring. Over the past several decades, many North American OEMs transitioned manufacturing offshore, typically to locations in Asia such as China, to take advantage of perceived lower costs and other anticipated benefits. Reshoring is the opposite of offshoring; and is simply bringing manufacturing back from overseas. While some costs such as labor may be lower with offshoring, many OEMs are realizing that reshoring is a much more competitive and attractive option when total cost of ownership and brand reputation are considered.
On-going global trade tensions, geopolitical instabilities, and the COVID-19 pandemic, have resulted in significant disruptions and strains on supply chains. To address these uncertainties, OEMs are seeking more localized suppliers to create a more robust supply chain with fewer risks – and reshoring manufacturing to the U.S. is an ideal solution.
There are many advantages to reshoring with U.S. manufacturing. The following highlights the main benefits and makes the case for partnering with a proven and experienced urethane manufacturer, like PSI Urethanes, which is a family-owned business based in Texas with distribution networks across the Americas. Watch our short video to learn more PSI’s history as a global urethane supplier. It should be noted that all of the advantages below result in production efficiencies and cost savings as well as lower risk for OEMs.
- Superior Quality: offshore manufacturing is known for its less expensive labor. However, offshoring often involves raw materials, tools, and equipment that are also cost driven, often leading to quality issues. A growing number of North American OEMs are looking for reduced quality risks and are seeking an alternative to offshore manufacturing. Reshoring offers North American OEMs more reliable and higher-quality products, which translates to a higher value manufacturing solution with reduced risk. North America has strict standards, and has earned a reputation for manufacturing very high-quality products for various industries. PSI, for example, is a urethane supplier for a wide variety of markets including automotive, metal forming, die cutting, military, and food processing.
- Excellent Proximity to U.S. and Canada: this is the most obvious benefit of reshoring to the U.S. but it cannot be overstated. OEMs must maintain control over manufacturing and it is much easier to oversee manufacturing when it is closer to home. For example, PSI Urethanes is located in Texas where you can easily travel to most locations in North America in a few hours whereas most flights to Asia take a day. Additionally, the time differences across North America are very manageable, allowing similar work schedules between personnel and the manufacturing location. This is a huge advantage compared to manufacturing in Asia where there is around a 14-hour time difference, especially when dealing with any urgent matters that cannot afford a delay.
Looking to reduce the level of risk and improve the reliability of your supply chain?
Contact PSI to learn more about our U.S. manufacturing facilities and our range of urethane solutions.
- Streamlined Logistics: reshoring means that finished goods often take only a matter of hours to arrive at your location compared to weeks from most Asian countries, resulting in transportation costs that are much lower as well as a lower risk of delays or damage during transit. This benefit has only been amplified in recent years due to the COVID pandemic as there have been significant travel and logistics delays with goods from Asia and shipping costs, especially freight rates, have skyrocketed. Reshoring with U.S. manufacturing streamlines logistics for OEMs, reducing the risk of logistics delays and cost spikes as well as securing brand reliability and consumer trust. Additionally, reshoring reduces the amount of inventory on water by dramatically decreasing the amount of time goods spend in transit – improving speed to market and the ability to rapidly respond to changing market conditions and customer demands.
- Responsible Business: over time, companies have continued to put more emphasis on responsible and sustainable manufacturing where importance is placed on the conditions of the factory and the origin of raw materials. One of the advantages of U.S. manufacturing is the value it places on its workforce and keeping them safe. Labor laws are enforced and there are limits on how many hours personnel can work each week and restrictions that ensure a safe work environment. Additionally, there are laws to ensure the quality and traceability of raw materials for manufactured products. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for many countries in Asia. Therefore, companies can do business in the U.S. knowing the workforce is taken care of under the local laws and their reputation is not at risk.
PSI Urethanes – Your U.S. Manufacturing Partner
With over 50 years of experience delivering the highest quality urethane products, PSI Urethanes stands unequaled in helping companies in hundreds of industries around the world apply urethane products to their critical business applications. Since 1966, through our own independent research and activity in the Polyurethane Manufacturers Association, PSI Urethanes has stayed on the leading edge of urethane technology – including developing advances in new materials, comprehensive designs, and processing technologies. Today we are among the most respected and trusted suppliers of custom urethane products.
We operate from our 45,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Austin, Texas, which houses an extensive stock of polyurethane products. Our fully equipped manufacturing facility includes a versatile range of processing machinery, which allows us to work on unique, one-of-a-kind projects, as well as high volume components. Our in-house engineering, tooling, and custom mold shop, produces custom and stock production orders with exceptionally fast turn-around times. From conception to prototyping, to final production runs, our technical representatives and design engineers will work closely with your staff to meet your critical tolerances and specifications. You are guaranteed to receive experienced, professional, and personalized service from the first contact through your on-time delivery, with complete confidentiality and dedication to protecting your good name.
PSI Urethanes specializes in custom urethane projects. Contact us today to see how we can help with your next manufacturing project, or give us a call at 1-800-888-5156.