Manufacturing

I expect manufacturing companies to reopen their US operations in 2018. Site selection criteria are well known.

Costs

As we bring manufacturing back to the US, I believe companies will return a lot of their manufacturing plants back to rural counties where they were before we sent them overseas. Costs are lower in rural areas and employees are often well suited to fill most jobs. Rural areas suffered when these plants left, so they are going to ensure that companies get a good deal to locate to their counties.

Proximity

Businesses like to put their manufacturing operations near customers or near resources. They factor in transportation costs to deliver raw materials to be processed and delivered to their plants. Steel plants like to be near iron ore quarries. Automobile plants like to be near their customers. 

Labor Force

Businesses also look at the labor force that would be available to fill their needs. If they require engineers, they may look at suburbs of larger cities that have a “critical mass” of engineers already. If they require assembly, they may set up training through local community colleges to offer custom certification programs.

Transportation

Headquarters groups will require proximity to air travel and are likely to put their offices in suburbs of larger cities. They will locate near good schools and subdivisions. They will avoid locating where traffic gridlock ensures that their employees will have a tough commute. Heavy manufacturing may need to locate near freight railroad lines. If they use trucks to move material in products out, they will want easy access to roads and highways.

Atlanta

Atlanta was not a manufacturing town before the 1980s. We were a Coke and Delta town with an airport and lots of Banking, Government and other office oriented operations. We did have good weather and lots of trees and people liked living here.

Atlanta experienced a lot of job growth in the 1980s with electronics manufacturing.  We had a population of 3 million, a road and highway system that worked if you didn’t need to go from East Metro to West Metro. We had Georgia Tech as an engineering base, active community colleges with certification training and companies needing to expand their design and manufacturing facilities. They picked Atlanta and located in the suburbs and there were over 200 companies designing and building electronics for multiple industries. After 1993, companies had developed their products and processes and began sending their manufacturing overseas and consolidating their engineering jobs back to their headquarters cities.

We did a lot of good work in Atlanta from 1980 to 2000.  We launched the PC, upgraded telephony, developed amazing military capabilities, developed high-volume automated manufacturing processes, developed computer integrated manufacturing, developed Lean Management systems, solved the US manufacturing quality problems and developed multi-functional cell phones.

Atlanta Metro now has a population of 6 million and few new roads and highways to accommodate them. We have gridlock because we forgot to grow the roads to fit the population. We’ve been throwing money at education, healthcare and attempting to build transit villages around our failing malls instead. We now have internationally famous gridlock. Companies won’t be as interested in locating in Atlanta as they were in the 1980s.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader