There's some apparent good U.S. economic news in the contract manufacturing world. Let's hope that can manifest itself into orders for new machines or upgrades of old ones.
Design-2-Part claims its shows are America's largest and longest running design and contract manufacturing tradeshows. In its recent, third-annual Design-2-Part (D2P) Manufacturing Trends Survey, 42% of U.S. OEMs — and by that they mostly mean component manufacturers — indicated they expect to have more outsourcing projects/purchases in the next year than they had in the past 12 months.
They reported year over year growth last year as well.
Responders were asked where they outsource. Some 42% identified local vendors-up to 100 miles; 20% said regional vendors-up to 250 miles; 19% said national vendors; and 20% named overseas/international vendors.
Those who answered local vendors, more than half (56%) said "hands-on access/vendor visits" was the primary reason why. Delivery time was second at 21%, followed by "support local economy" at 13% and "cost" at 11%.
Of the responders who said they outsourced overseas/international, 50% said delivery time was their biggest supply chain risk. That was followed by "vendor stability" at 31%, "shipping costs" at 12%, and "natural disaster" at 7%.
The entirety of the survey results are at www.d2p.com
