Reshoring - UK Evolution of reshoring in the plastics industry heading to CJ
Challenge
UK Manufacturing is currently going through a restoration of reshoring to the United Kingdom. At C J Tool and Mouldings we are very proud of what we are able to offer businesses across the UK, Europe and the rest of the world from our site in Stourbridge in the West Midlands.
We pride ourselves on people, product and partnership, which allows us to deliver high standards in product quality, prompt order fulfilment and personal communication whilst focusing on cost driven supply.
Over seas supply routes have proven aggressive for a number of years, mainly because of lower labour costs. However this trend seems to have come to an end and in-fact, many companies are returning their production to the UK due to quality issues, delivery lead times, increasing cost’s and resource to manage the supply base.
Talk to any injection moulders and you are likely to hear a reshoring story; but why should you choose to bring your tools to CJ? We asked our customer who did just that.
“Any re-shoring project needs to be managed in order to minimise any potential issues that could arise from the transfer of any amount of work small or large from an over seas supply base.
CJ Tool and Mouldings from the initial meeting demonstrated that they understood all of the items that needed to be reviewed, documented and planned to make sure the project was completed with minimal disruption, having worked with CJ Tool and Mouldings for a number of years we already knew that they were a very capable moulder that could assemble and critically had its own in house tool room, we also were aware of how they could deliver new projects and review existing products.
The process that they followed left nothing to chance and in-fact made us realise the lack of information we held within our business on tooling and specifications of our own products, however due to the team at CJ Tool and Mouldings driving and documenting the project it did not put any real work load on our business, which adds real value.
The initial meeting was an opportunity to meet the team and understand information requirements, which would then allow CJ Tool and Mouldings to gain the information to be able to start the process of analysis, they also delivered evidence of other re-shoring projects large and small which helped in our understanding of our expectations.
We have been asked by CJ Tool and Mouldings to write a review of the process from our experience, something I would not normally do, however as the CJ team delivered exactly what they said, a smooth re-shoring of all of our over seas products, I thought I should as it may help another business bring their manufacturing back to the UK with total confidence in CJ Tool and Mouldings Ltd.
Initially we were asked a number of specific questions relating to our products overseas as detailed below
- Quantity of tools
- Tool specs
- Materials specifications
- Costs/ Budgets/Unit Prices
- Lead times
- Order profiles
- Stock requirements
- MOQ
- Delivery
- Tooling
- Packaging
- Quality testing and inspection
- Reason for leaving
- Items looking to improve
My next update will discuss how C J Tool and Mouldings handled and processed the information and our decision process.
Added: 11 Sep 2018 12:22
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