As I am writing this, in mid-2022, we're living in pretty unprecedented times. The Covid pandemic is ongoing, tensions between major world powers are at a high, previously solid supply chains and business practices are crumbling, inflation is rising affecting all kinds of costs, politics are causing countries to become more insular and closed-minded, and shipping is still a mess. Today's manufacturing businesses need to find suitable supply chain risk reduction strategies to help counter these … [Read more...]
3 Vertical Integration Benefits: Transparency, Control, Speed
Last year I wrote about a very common problem in China Supply Chain Transparency and Monitoring: Not Getting Easier… and this year we are still lamenting that same problem: Further down the supply chain, unauthorized subcontracting is still very, very common. We noticed this is particularly true of metal surface treatment processes that are done outside of the “main factory” (which would typically do casting and CNC lathe/milling). A few examples: Plating Polishing Painting, … [Read more...]