Dayton Business Journal
Small manufacturers bucking outsourcing trend
Monday, October 8, 2012 

Small manufacturers in the U.S. increasingly are bucking the trend of outsourcing jobs to China and other developing countries globally, opting instead to build products they can stamp with the "Made in the U.S.A" label on them, according to an Inc.com report.

The reason many smaller manufacturers are reversing the course many of their peers took during the past three-decades is because they find their customers increasingly are asking for a level of quality of precision manufactured parts that can't be found from overseas factories. Even when a foreign factory can meet the quality level, the cost savings sometimes are not as much and make it more inviting to keep the work at home. 

There also is a growing emphasis among customers to purchase products made in the U.S. 

"We attend trade shows outside of the U.S. and people are always pleasantly surprised that we manufacture in the U.S.," said John Kujawa, chief executive officer of Lumitec, a Delray Beach, Fla., company that exports its lighting products to more than 30 countries. "It is understood that many products manufactured in the U.S. are greater quality than those from certain other countries." 

While there were 2.3 million jobs lost during the recession, there have been more than 500,000 manufacturing jobs created since 2009, with more than half of them in five states that include Ohio, according to the Inc.com report. 

In May, companies across the Dayton region had job openings for 700 manufacturing positions, according to a survey conducted MadeInDaytonBLOG.com. And because only a small percentage of manufacturers took the survey, officials say it could be an indication that thousands of manufacturing jobs in the region are going unfilled… 

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