We continue to hear news about the 4-Day workweek. Some European countries have implemented this, but it has yet to take hold in the US. Is this a good idea for us in manufacturing? Or in other types of work? And who would benefit from such a change? We have no particular view on this subject, other than the obvious fact that such a change would present problems to manufacturers, along with many others, of… Read More
Manufacturers might be well advised to pay attention to the current movement using ESG standards (whose standards are these?) for funding decisions. This could affect your retirement system as well as access to funding for any number of things. For a second time we want to take a look at ESG standards for investments. Proficient Sourcing recommends suppliers for manufacturing OEM outsourcing needs, and most of our recommended companies are domestic shops. If funding becomes… Read More
Making sense of economic forecasts is risky business, but we looked at many claims of such expertise concerning manufacturing. This is a summary of one such source from Hitachi Solutions. Their report contained several factors widely reported in other places. As we all know the trifecta of problems, labor issues, supply chain and inflation remain as a combined big deal. How these will shake out over 2023 remains to be seen. The Hitachi report lists… Read More
Recently we found “The Economic Disaster of the Pandemic Response”, a talk by Jeffrey Tucker from October 2022. Mr. Tucker is a writer of some note, but evidently a strong conservative. Whether or not his remarks are 100% accurate or not is beyond our ability to determine, but it makes a lot of sense. We’re no fan of central planning, especially for the national economy, which created a number of problems in this case. The… Read More
Recently we heard a radio report that the government was considering 4 Day work week legislation. No further details were reported, so we can only speculate that this is a move that might happen sometime in the future. To whom, how and when unreported. The US economy consists of a wide variety of types of work, so just how such legislation would work seems very confusing. Just some examples: blue collar workers in a company… Read More
Proficient Sourcing can help almost anyone considering reshoring manufacturing in 2022 and beyond. We can help by offering candidates for all manner of manufacturing with a network of companies, all of whom have a history of happy customers—without cost or obligation. Here are many of the capabilities we offer. A particularly good example would be large iron/steel castings, which our source can now provide at nearly equivalent costs compared to Asia, given current shipping costs,… Read More
Last year we introduced a potential supplier to an equipment OEM. The OEM has several fairly large machine parts they want to source to new machining sources. The desired vendor will be capable of handling thousand pound steel parts, which require complex machining operations. Not quite 5-axis, but their parts have very intricate details. This means a complex quoting procedure, and perhaps if the OEM would provide some sort of cost parameters it would help… Read More
We’re all about improving your supply chain. Whether reshoring something or any of a myriad of possibilities, if you want excellent candidates for your outsourced manufacturing, we can probably help. Key areas of success have been large metal parts, such as machine bases, fabricated and molded plastics, domesticating ferrous (and large!) castings, tanks, pressure vessels, and even micro machined precision items. We can also offer special ISO candidates for specific industries. Here’s a partial listing of our… Read More
Several procurement consultants’ websites and discussion groups list factors that define a good supplier. This is particularly relevant to Proficient Sourcing; we provide manufacturing supplier candidates to OEM buyers and are acutely aware of the need for excellent performance. On time delivery is always among the most valued factors. With new suppliers, the buyer has only the prospective suppliers’ history for evidence of excellent delivery performance. Our network has been built with companies have that… Read More
Cheap and abundant energy is one factor that has helped the US manufacturing competitive position relative to global alternatives. Reshoring has been enhanced by that very factor. Over the past year we have all seen a number of factors influencing that position. It’s not clear who’s gaining or losing, other than apparently Russia’s oil and gas revenue has not changed much. Or perhaps that’s not true. It’s difficult to sort out the wheat from the… Read More
