Motorola is set to launch its Moto X this summer and it will have one feature that is not found in any other smart phones in the market today. It claims to be made in the USA. This is what Motorola CEO Dennis Woodside confirmed at a conference last month. The smart phone would be manufactured at Flextronics, a manufacturing facility in Fort Worth, Texas. The facility used to make Nokia phones. Moto X will be engineered, designed, and assembled in the US but its components would still be made overseas.
Motorola, which is owned by Google, joins a growing number of companies that are making a commitment to make more products in the US. Some of the other companies include General Electric and Apple.
The reshoring is driven by several factors that include increasing prices overseas and technological innovations in the US. Experts said the manufacturing it home has become more cost effective. A lot of manufacturers said they plan to increase their investments in the US in the next couple of years.
The demand for US-made goods has been increasing. Americans have realized that goods made at home mean more jobs. With lots of Americans out of jobs, consumers are starting to support made-in-America companies.
In 2000, more than 17.3 million Americans held manufacturing jobs according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In 2009, the number dropped to 11.67 million. In 2011, it rebounded to 11.76 million. According to a study made by the MIT Forum for Supply Chain Innovation in 2012, a third of the survey’s respondents said they consider bringing back manufacturing to the United States. 15 percent said they plan on reshoring.
Their reasons for reshoring were different. Three quarters of survey respondents said the time it took to bring products to the market was the driving factor. Two-thirds of the respondents said cost cutting and product quality were factors for considering moving manufacturing to the US.
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