TALKING POINT
Will the pandemic drive reshoring
of UK manufacturing?
The current pandemic is strengthening calls to reshore many aspects of UK
production, but is this realistic or achievable, asks Jon Excell?
The need to strengthen and
simplify UK engineering
supply chains by
reshoring aspects of
production has been a
major topic of industry
debate for decades: arguably since
the very point that manufacturers
began outsourcing production
to more competitively priced
overseas economies.
In recent years – as the value
of actually making things has
begun to sink in – efforts to
beef up UK supply chains and
encourage manufacturers to
favour domestic production have
gathered momentum.
But the Covid-19 pandemic
has now turbocharged these
arguments by exposing the
frailties of many of our supply
chains and bringing home in
tragic detail just how reliant we
have become on the overseas
supply of strategically critical
items. And there is now growing
momentum behind the argument
to re-establish UK production
of these parts and protect SME
manufacturing.
Of course, reshoring is far
from straightforward. Shifting
manufacturing from overseas
and re-establishing the capability
to meet existing demands takes
time. But the current crisis has
illustrated that UK manufacturers
– many of whom have rapidly
shifted production to critical
June 2020 / www.theengineer.co.uk 14
components that can’t be sourced
from existing supply chains –
are perhaps more nimble and
adaptable than even they thought.
So is reshoring a realistic,
or even a sensible aim? Should
the Covid-19 pandemic trigger
a major reshoring strategy? Is
this unrealistic given the low
overseas costs that drove us
to offshore in the first place?
Have supply chains – in the
face of a potentially once in a
century health crisis – proved to
be resilient enough? Or should
we consider a more nuanced
approach, where we ensure we
have the domestic capability
to produce the kind of critical
components and equipment that
have been in such short supply in
recent weeks?
Whatever your views on
the practicalities of unpicking
decades of outsourcing it seems
likely that when the current
crisis passes, and we look at the
ways in which our economy and
manufacturing base can ensure
its future resilience, then the
arguments for reshoring will be
louder than ever before.
JEGAS RA/Stock.adobe.com
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