Topic: Outsourced Manufacturing

The trust it takes to fall in love with that someone special is the same leap of faith that happens when companies choose to outsource their manufacturing needs.

As I briefly touched upon in my previous post, manufacturers have surprisingly few tools designed for efficient product data sharing. Most communicate product data to their suppliers with email,[…]

If you make a hardware product, chances are good that you outsource. In fact, roughly 53% of manufacturing companies outsource—that’s more than companies in any other sector including IT services (43%),[…]

In our recent outsourcing series, we asked our readers a simple question: how much of your production process should you outsource? We shared our thoughts on the subject and presented a variety of options[…]

The exchange of product data between original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and their supply chain partners is one of the most important processes in manufacturing. The initial handoff of design data to[…]

If your product comes with a lot of security concerns, you may not want to surrender too much power, product knowledge and control to your CM. (This is especially true if you have a highly complex product[…]

There is something really complicated about bringing a prototype to production, and while it’s an exciting time, there is a certain amount of pain and stress that you just can’t avoid.

One of the biggest[…]

If you’ve had any luck with your first product, chances are you’re beginning to think about adding a second product to your line.

When a business begins to sell across the globe, it’s sometimes assumed that the next step is moving some—or most—of the manufacturing operations to one or more foreign countries as well. After all, it’s[…]

Hope is not a strategy. Yet when it comes to important supply relationships, many OEMs seem to adopt this approach. They wash their hands of the details and hope that their product comes out in the right[…]

It happens in subtle ways. An engineer orders a few samples from the supplier who just visited. Tight schedules force the buyer to order material from the first supplier he can find. A designer decides to[…]

Choosing supply chain partners is one of the most important decisions you make when scaling your business, but knowing which suppliers to trust can be a risky game. Whether you’re sourcing components,[…]

While outsourcing began as a quest for cheaper labor, a successful outsourcing strategy depends on more than your ability to find a country with low labor costs. As wages rise in[…]

Scaling Part II: Five tips for maintaining scalable supplier relationships See Part I: Is your business prepared to scale? There are a variety of steps you can take internally to prepare your business to[…]

It’s no surprise that outsourcing has changed the global manufacturing landscape over the last several decades, for better or worse. Outsourcing allows manufacturers to competitively price and scale up and[…]

I’d like to take you on a journey through a world without product data exchange (PDX)—where OEMs and CMs rely on manually created print packages and zipped electronic files to share product information[…]

Companies making the strategic decision to outsource manufacturing or design services face a variety of challenges—from securing the best pricing, to creating a strategy that works across several different[…]

When you outsource assembly, the product of your engineering department isn’t really hardware—it’s raw information. This raw information (BOMs, drawings, specifications, purchasing and sourcing[…]

Securing pricing is a struggle for every manufacturer who enters into an outsourcing partnership. But is focusing on reducing part and service prices the best way to lower your total outsourcing costs?[…] read more

To everyone who waited so patiently while I got this write up together—thank you! And so you don’t have to wait a second longer, here it is, the 2011 Arena Solutions Manufacturing Outsourcing survey[…]

I know it’s taken forever, but I finally finished the Arena Solutions Manufacturing Outsourcing Survey report. (Whew!) We talked to 1004 respondents across the high-tech, medical device, consumer products,[…]

For organizations moving from prototype to production, there are a lot of decisions that must be made about how to source parts and build the product. A major part of this process is deciding what can be[…]

Short answer—“no.” As we wrap up analysis of our Manufacturing Outsourcing Trends Survey, it’s becoming clear that although there are some general commonalities, the specific benefits, challenges and[…]

As I said on Tuesday, small manufacturers face unique challenges when it comes to navigating the contract manufacturer (CM) and original equipment manufacturer (OEM) relationship.

Outsourcing plays a role in almost every manufacturing strategy. But for smaller manufacturers with fewer resources available, the challenges of outsourcing—finding the right contract manufacturer (CM),[…]

With global supply chain shortages following the earthquake in Japan, continuing unrest in the Middle East and Libya, hurricanes and tornadoes in the U.S. and the fluctuating costs of labor worldwide, it[…]

As we turn our attention to the topic of manufacturing outsourcing, I will be looking for related learning opportunities to share with friends of the blog. To that end, I’d like to invite you to an[…]

If you are a small to mid-size manufacturer, it’s probably safe to assume that you outsource some or all of your manufacturing. But “outsourcing” is a very broad term that means different things to[…]

For years, “Made in the U.S.A.” implied “overpriced” to manufacturers and consumers alike. The pressure to reduce costs drove many manufacturers to seek less expensive offshoring alternatives to the[…]

How do small and mid-size manufacturing companies operate today? And do these firms anticipate growth over the next five years? Last December more than 200 small to mid-size manufacturing firms (thank[…]

It goes without saying that the economic benefits of outsourcing can be significant for large and small manufacturers alike. However, unless well-managed systems and processes are in place, the promise of[…]

SupplyChainBrain.com offers a summary of a new whitepaper on outsourced manufacturing that focuses on how to develop agreements with supply chain partners that lead to positive relationships and successful[…]

In 2003, Adam Hocherman went big and founded a consumer electronics company called American Innovative. With the help of the U.S. government’s SBA loan program, he began turning his ideas into products[…]

I was fascinated by the video in Marc’s recent post about the official soccer ball of the 2010 World Cup. What struck me was the highly optimized combination of handwork and custom tooling involved in the[…]