The flexibility, high profit margins and lower costs of manufacturing in the East make it an appealing base, but in reality, manufacturing at home can produce several beneficial outcomes. There is scope to improve quality of product, by directly driving your product’s production in the factory. As well as this, there is a huge monetary and environmental cost to overseas manufacturing, which, like lead times, could be significantly reduced by UK manufacturing.
UK Government’s ‘Project Defend’ and UK manufacturing
Boris Johnson and Dominic Raab have announced ‘Project Defend’- an initiative which attempts to re-invigorate the UK economy via a number of channels. The main aim is to strengthen supply chain resilience, especially around tech and medical supplies, such as the PPE crucial during COVID. The economic fallout from Brexit gives an opportunity for the diversification of the supply chain, and a major restructuring of typical product flows could be beneficial to the economy.
The Challenges of using a Chinese manufacturer
A main factor contributing to this sentiment is quality control because proximity to manufacturing means that a closer supervision of the process can be encouraged. The benefits to UK manufacturing include trusted factories, no shipping or language barrier, and smaller minimum orders, as well as protection of intellectual property. Furthermore, the more sophisticated and complex a product, the less likely that this will be translated to an overseas manufacturer. The tech which Chinese companies once bought at cost, in order to achieve their famously low competitive margins, is now cheaper to buy. This could help facilitate the reshoring of critical supplies.
A Growing movement to UK manufacturing
In the UK and US, this trend has already begun. The Economist has suggested that the Globalisation of trade has begun to retract, as a direct result of the COVID-19 pandemic. This repatriation of manufacture is largely supported by Governments, especially in those more sensitive sectors of Technology and Medicine. The possibility for more control over the quality of products, as well as the stimulation of the manufacturing sector, make returning to the UK a potentially beneficial choice.
Europlaz Technologies is a leading Contract Medical Device Manufacturer based approximately 50 miles from Central London. To find out how we could become your ideal medical device manufacturing partner, please contact us on 01621 773 792.
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