Outsource Locally By Jesse Walker Analysis

Braydon Kriegel

Professor Champion

KW Composition

3/1/23

Localized Manufacturing: A Step in the Right Direction

“From 2000 to 2009, America bled nearly six million manufacturing jobs, or a third of its industrial workforce, as companies shifted production overseas.” Jesse Walker, through the medium of her piece “Outsource Locally”, explains the severe damage that the workforce has taken from the globalization of manufacturing. Even today, big corporations are outsourcing their labor and manufacturing to other parts of the world. Localized manufacturing is the idea that retailers can produce their product in their local area, rather than outsourcing labor to other areas of the world. This is a growing problem in society, and it’s reflected in

Installing localized manufacturing in the US will provide necessary jobs for the US and its citizens. In Walker’s article, she covers a few ideas related to localized manufacturing. The Manufacturing Alliance of the Red River Valley is a group of manufacturing agencies who hold contracts with large corporations like Boeing and Caterpillar, but they stay small scale and local. As Walker touches on in her writing, it’s been proven successful in other areas of the world. She specifically brings up the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy. That 90,000 strong community of manufacturing plants is almost entirely employee- or family-owned, which benefits both those with ties to the companies and the general economy. “Among the regions of Italy, Emilia-Romagna ranked 17th in per capita income in 1970. By 1985 it was second” (Walker). Author Tamsin McMahon shares a similar standing, referencing large corporations like Foxconn, which serves as a way for big names in Silicon Valley like Apple and Sony to outsource manufacturing. It specifically references the large number of

Thus, self-reliance can help streamline production and keep manufacturing an efficient process, all while mitigating the risk of worldwide supply-chain hiccups and issues. Take for example the peri- and post-pandemic supply chain issues of the early 2020’s. More often than not, big-box stores struggled to keep toilet paper on the shelves. Industry leader Wal-Mart had to put restrictions on toilet paper purchases, limiting sales to 2 packs per customer. Another industry with severe production halts is the automotive and electronics industry. Production of microchips, a vital electronic component, slowed almost to a stop. Dustin Walsh’s article in Crain’s Detroit Business elaborates on this in his piece “Microchip shortage hitting auto sector hard: What to know: Spending glut on consumer electronics during the pandemic disrupts supply chain.” He explains how General Motors completely stopped production at several plants is related to the mass purchasing of consumer electronics:

Personal computer sales were up 4.8 percent to 275 million units in 2020, according to data from market research firm Gartner. Last year was the largest bump in PC sales in a decade. In fact, 2020 was the largest year on record for consumer electronics at $442 billion, according to the Consumer Technology Association,