America’s economic engine is compromised. Forces at work over the last 30 years have sapped our nation’s vitality. Pushing back.

Reeling from the loss of a sizeable piece of our electronic scale business, I knew that I had to improve the quality of our electronic scales. But how?

The Taiwan manufacturer was of no help. They designed and built these scales the best that they knew. The product return rate was reasonable for them and they had no appetite for any additional effort. I wondered if I could bring production to our facility in Illinois.

With components produced locally and assembly in-house, I knew that we would find improvements. But what would that cost? Our profit margins were already tight; could we afford to pay more for quality?

As it turned out, that question went unanswered. Working with our local parts suppliers and bringing assembly operations into our Illinois facility, we were able to relocate production from Taiwan to the U.S. at a “real” cost reduction of 15%!

[Post 7 of 21]