Will Today's Supply Chain Disruptions Bring Manufacturing Back to the USA?

AUSTIN, Texas - Oct. 8, 2021 - PRLog -- We've all seen the headlines.

Worldwide chips shortage has reduced car production lines to a standstill, with analysts projecting that the situation will continue well into 2022, with IHS Market estimating that automakers will produce 10.6 million fewer vehicles in 2021 due to the chip shortfall.

Leading American retailers such as Costco report that the cost of shipping a container from Asia to the US has increased by as much as 6x, causing major retail companies, including Costco, Home Depot, Target, and Walmart, to charter their own container ships.

But chartering ships may not be enough to solve all the supply chain issues, as cargo ships remain stalled in waters outside key US ports on both the East and West coast, waiting for overwhelmed port, rail, and trucking firms to transfer the goods.

Increasing demand for fuel and transportation bottlenecks are hitting the UK especially hard; record natural gas prices and gasoline shortages threaten industrial production and economic activity.

And analysts point to a potential further supply chain collapse, which could seriously damage the world economy as it struggles to recover from the Coronavirus pandemic.

Wouldn't It Be Better If We Made Things Close To Home?

Until last year, the concept of a "supply chain" was virtually unknown outside the world of company executives and logistics, procurement, and distribution management professionals.

But supply chain disruptions during the height of the Coronavirus lockdown last year brought the issues home for a wide swath of the public – who became increasingly frustrated at the inability to buy staples such as toilet paper and baby wipes.

At the same time, healthcare providers (and other essential workers) could not find enough PPE (such as N-95 masks) or medical equipment (such as ventilators for Covid patients in the ICU) — which are now primarily manufactured overseas.

In the public's mind, this desperate situation had one root cause — we are too dependent on overseas production – leading to an outcry that our public health and safety depends on returning to make critical items (especially PPE, medicines, and medical equipment) here at home.

Company Executives Coming Around To Seeing Benefits Of Reshoring Supply Chains And Manufacturing Operations

Public sentiment doesn't always translate into action, however.

There've been many public awareness campaigns in the past ("Look for the Union Label" anyone?) that sought to pressure companies to produce goods in the USA — but to little avail.

However, things seem to be different this time.

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