We live in a global economy. This reality stuck home the hardest for many U.S. manufacturing companies over the past 20 years, whereas Chinese manufactures, dealing under a different set of labor, patent and environmental rules, were able to make many products manufactured in the United States, “un-competitively ” priced, leading to losses of many U.S. manufactured brands and products.
If you go back as recently as 10 years, it was pretty common for landed costs from China to be 25 to 30 percent less than the cost of manufacturing in the United States. Being a United States manufacturing company, we are happy to report that this Chinese manufacturing advantage has eroded dramatically.
Higher Chinese wage costs, the rising value of Chinese currency, and the rising cost of shipping goods to points around the world have made manufacturing in China more expensive; while back at home, productivity improvements, and falling U.S. energy prices have narrowed the difference in manufactured costs between China and the U.S. to such a degree that it’s almost negligible.
Today, for every dollar required to manufacture product in the U.S., it now costs $.96 cents to manufacture in China, before considering the cost of transportation to the U.S. and other factors. For many companies doing business with China, this more “level playing field” means that it’s hardly worth the risk when product quality, intellectual property rights, and long-distance supply chain issues are added to the equation.
Lee Manufacturing is proud to welcome many new customers to our team who have found that “made in the USA” speaks to more than just improved quality and delivery, but now also stands for competitively priced sheet-metal enclosures. As a means to further emphasize our American pride and quality we now offer the label shown in order to differentiate our product from the former Chinese product, and also as a proud way of telling all Americans purchasing your company’s enclosure is now manufactured in the same county that it’s being sold in. We promise that you and your customer will see the quality difference immediately.