The CE trade media frequently bemoans the Race To Zero that happens in the
business: the lemming-like drive among manufacturers to “be competitive” by
chasing lower price points and lower margins. Notwithstanding the old
DotCom-era joke about Amazon.com losing money on every transaction “but
making it up on volume” asking whether anybody actually wins long-term at
that strategy is a valid question to ask.

That’s why a conversation I recently had with John Wiebe, President of
Cambre Products, a Canadian manufacturer of mounts and AV furniture was
enlightening. Over time, Cambre has moved a lot of its product manufacturing
from offshore to back in Canada. In a category as cut-throat as furniture,
that’s surprising.

But Wiebe is adamant that vendors who take a hard look at domestic
production can be competitive. “At first you’d think that the cost wouldn’t
be as cheap as offshoring” he explains, “but it’s really not.” He cites a
number of factors that add up in favour of domestic production.

The first and most obvious is shipping and fuel surcharges, but it goes
beyond those, to include costs like quality control. “I think everyone has
experienced QC issues with overseas products.” He observes. Domestic
production means that it’s less costly to maintain QC with your suppliers.
“You simply can’t do it on every container coming out of Asia unless you’re
over there full-time.” He concludes.

Wiebe’s goal for the past 18 months has been to bring all of Cambre’s
product line back to Canada one sku at a time; a task that he says is
attainable. He counsels manufacturers to do a little homework and find the
right domestic suppliers to work with. As he puts it, “I challenge vendors
to do a proper cost analysis of offshore suppliers and you can close [to the
cost of offshore manufacturing] using locally sourced products.”