Globalization, Free Trade, Off Shoring; while around since people started sailing the seas, it came to the forefront over 30 years ago. I remember a TV show some 10 years ago talking about Free Trade being essential to expanding efforts in improving foreign human rights, although it added in a “we hope”. (And if it didn’t improve human rights, at least we would be selling to a larger market and making more money). They also made claims that offshoring creates higher paying jobs in the US and prevents war. Claims which have been pretty much discarded. The ME TOO aspect was that a few larger companies started offshoring, and then after reading about it being “the next great sourcing move;” large, medium, and even small companies fled our shores.
Most businesspeople would admit quietly that those human rights discussions helped legitimize offshoring, but the main reasons were lower costs and access to more consumers. Lower costs because there were less restrictions, both environmentally AND labor force. (Which flew in the face of the whole human rights rationale).
Amazingly, DEglobalizing of industry started being discussed more widely in 2020 and continues in earnest NOW in light of mounting supply chain issues.
Having been the recipients of molds from numerous failed or abandoned offshoring attempts, we applaud the desire to RIGHT source programs that should not have left North America in the first place.
PlastiCert, despite pressure from some prospective customers, has never sourced tools from offshore. We have been writing about poor ME TOO offshoring decisions for many years. The reason was not anti-global. It was because we knew we did not want to create the resources (and added cost) to manage that kind of outsourcing effort. As it turns out, practically NO ONE had the resources to correctly manage it.
PlastiCert has experience at assessing (and correcting) tools sourced offshore that find their way back to the USA.
We also can provide you the molds you need at a cost comparable to offshore (before they started getting more desperate for business).
So if you need an North American Source for molds AND/OR injection molding, give us a call. We’ve always been here, we were profitable before, through the height of offshoring, and now, and would love to be your source for quality molds and molding.