Not too long ago, an article penned by members of A.T. Kearney’s Strategic Operations Practice outlined some of the major reasons why re-shoring, for all its business viability and value to the American economy, faces real problems with aging machinery and a workforce in need of new, well-trained people. Naturally, these two concerns stem from a variety of flaws in the educational and training systems currently in place throughout the U.S., and from a lack of foresight from manufacturers, who were not prepared for such a wide skills gap.
And perhaps more importantly, these concerns have become very real elements of the re-shoring equation, ones that manufacturers would be remiss to ignore while making the business case for bringing production back to the States from an off-shored location. Patrick Van den Bossche, the Americas Lead Partner at A.T. Kearney, says the difference between acknowledging these systemic flaws and working ahead to fix them, or ignoring them, could mean the difference between a successful and a failed change in doing business.