Offshore manufacturing

Operations strategy refers to the decisions on how the company will produce its goods and services. Examples of decisions are which production strategy will be used (e.g., make to stock, make to order or some combination), what is the best balance between in source and outsource, will the company pursue a low cost offshore manufacturing strategy, just to enumerate some examples. 

During the last 10 years, offshore manufacturing has increased significantly, particularly in countries like China, Mexico and India, where the cost of labor is very low. China s share of manufactured goods in the world market increased significantly after it joined WTO in 2001. According to the Asian Development Bank, China s share of the world market in 2004 was as follows ... 

Offshore manufacturing The product is manufactured in a foreign location, imported back and distributed locally to customers. 

It seems likely that the metric system will ultimately become the standard system of measurement in the United States, as it already is in the rest of the world. As international trade and offshore manufacturing increase, the necessity for American industry to adopt the SI increases. In addition, educational systems have increased their focus on science and technology, and metric systems will become more fe-miliar to children in American schools. 

Particularly in the initial period of implementing solutions based on offshoring manufacturing operations, the essential goal was to use the poorly paid workforce to perform simple assembly activities that mainly required manual labour. This option assumes achieving a cost... 

Table 13.4 shows typical costs of four-, six-, and eight-layer 18 in by 24 in standard process panels built at offshore manufacturers. This table can be used to calculate the relative cost of PCBs as layer count is increased to reduce area. While the absolute costs in the table are based on Spring 1995 pricing for Pacific Rim fabricators, the percentage relationships between the costs of panels of various layer counts are a good indicator of relative costs for deciding when to increase layer count and reduce area. 

Partly as a result of outsourcing activities that previously were performed in-house combined with the trend to offshore manufacturing, many companies have found that they have added to the complexity of their operations because the degree of interdependency across the network has increased. Thus an event or action taking place in one part of the network will often have unforeseen impacts somewhere else in the network. The unpredictability of these events is heightened by the growing volatility that characterises today s business environment. 

Global sourcing and offshore manufacturing - the well-established trend to low-cost country sourcing and manufacturing has meant that supply chains are significantly extended and products travel much further. 

Warburton, R., Stratton, R. (2002). Questioning the relentless shift to offshore manufacturing. Supply Chain Management, 7, 101-108. 

The globalisation of supply chains and the trends to outsourcing and offshore manufacturing in the search for low labour costs have paradoxically exposed businesses to new risks. For example the abolition of the Multi Fibre Agreement which has removed quota restrictions on low labour cost economies, has enabled those countries to increase their penetration of the market with cheaper imports thus increasing competition for UK manufacturers. 

Ritter R.C and Stemfells R.A. (2004) When Offshore Manufacturing Doesn t Make Sense . The McKinsey Quarterly 4. 

Warburton R.D.H and Stratton, R. (2002) Questioning the Relentless Shift to Offshore Manufacturing . Supply Chain Management An International Journal, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 

Supply chain configuration Direct/indirect export Outsourced manufacturing Offshore manufacturing... 

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