Off Shoring vs On Shoring Manufacturing

In an increasingly connected world, we have an abundance of options in where to send our manufacturing jobs. The idea of getting your parts made as cheap as possible somewhere else might sound like a good idea at first, but other complications like shipping and trade agreements might add to that cost. On the other hand, getting parts made locally might not always work out for the best for its own reasons. In this blog we will go over advantages of Off Shore manufacturing and On Shore manufacturing.

Off Shore manufacturing refers to sending your manufacturing jobs to another continent. There are many advantages to making parts off shore. More affordable wages are one of the biggest advantages for Off Shore manufacturing. Lower wages are also accompanied by lower expenses. That means the manufacturer who is making your parts has lower rent, transportation, tooling, and other expenses that would affect the cost of your manufacturing job. There is also a high degree of skill with manufacturing jobs in Off Shore markets, in comparison to the western world where people are leaving labor jobs for desk jobs. This means you don’t have to sacrifice manufacturing lead time and quality for lower wages. Thanks to lower expenses and less regulation, it is usually easier to start a manufacturing company overseas. So you can find more off shore manufacturing companies who can serve you. Due to more companies and a bigger labor market, it is also easier to up scale your manufacturing jobs as your demand and requirements grow.

Making parts off shore means your parts have to be shipped to you. You can ship parts by air relatively quickly, but it gets expensive if you are shipping something big or heavy. You can ship your parts by ocean, but it will take 1-2 months to arrive. In this case, we would recommend On Shore Manufacturing for larger and heavier parts. Sometimes you will have to communicate with a manufacturer in a different time zone to sort out details in the manufacturing job. It’s not uncommon for a simple conversation to be dragged out over a series of emails taking several days. More manufacturers have helpful sales staff who work late hours so there is some time overlap with their customers to answer queries in a fast manner. But that doesn’t resolve all time zone related hurdles because sometimes you have to talk to engineering or the machinist to sort out details. This is another scenario where on shore manufacturing is advantageous. Complex manufacturing jobs can be sped up by making things locally. This is due to reduce shipping times and more efficient communication.

Another advantage of On Shore manufacturing is that it’s easier to protect your Intellectual Property. IP theft doesn’t always happen with off shore manufacturing, but it does happen. When you are geographically closer to the manufacturer, it’s easier to find out if they’re making copies of your product and selling it to other parties. It also is easier to enforce patents and copyright claims if a manufacturer breaches a contract and they are in the same country or continent as you. Sometimes you might need to visit a manufacturer, to perform a quality audit, build relations, deliver samples or mating parts, etc. On shore companies are easier to visit if the manufacturing job requires frequent visits.

Here's a quick recap on the advantages to Off Shore Manufacturing and On Shore Manufacturing.

Off Shore Advantages

• Lower manufacturing costs.

• Great shipping options for small to medium parts.

• Abundant skilled labor market.

• Greater quantity of manufacturing companies.

• Easier to increase scale.

On Shore Advantages

• Faster delivery or shipping time.

• Easy shipping for large parts.

• Better IP Protection.

• More efficient communication.

• Easier to visit manufacturer if needed.

Those are some of the advantages to Off Shore and On Shore manufacturing. There are additional advantages to both manufacturing methods that we didn’t mention in this bite sized blog. Should we write a more detailed blog going over more advantages for each method? Let us know if you can think of additional benefits to on shoring or off shoring in the comments!