Protean Supply Chains: Ten Dynamics of Supply and Demand Alignment

CHAPTER 3Regional Theaters of Supply

In late 2012 Apple Inc. announced plans to shift some of its computer manufacturing back to the United States. The iconic computer and electronics maker, born in California, had decided to bring back at least a small portion of its production back home from China.

Apple is hardly alone in reshoring—bringing manufacturing back from a foreign country to the United States. Makers of appliances, electrical equipment, lighting, and phones these days are reassessing the value of offshored manufacturing for the U.S. market and operating extended global supply chains, which often entails the shipment of products made in Asia thousands of miles back to buyers in the United States. Motorola Mobility—part of Google—announced that it was going to move some smartphone production to Texas. In fact, The Washington Post (May 1, 2013) reported that such well-known American companies as Ford, Caterpillar, and GE had also announced plans to return manufacturing back to the shores of the United States. Other companies that have recently reshored include Master Lock, NCR, Karen Kane, Morey, and Wham-O, according to the organization Reshoring Institute. In fact, a TD Economics report released in October 2012 said that U.S. manufacturing had revived due to the abatement in offshoring of production.

But the United States isn't the only Western country that has started to experience a rise in home manufacturing. The Financial Times (November 15, 2013) reported on a study ...