The third annual Design-2-Part (D2P) Manufacturing Trends Survey shows that although U.S. manufacturing appears to have steadied from strong growth in 2011, contract manufacturing continues a 2-year trend of positive growth.
Forty-two percent of U.S. OEMs indicated that they expect to have more outsourcing projects/purchases in the next year than they have had in the past 12 months. This response represents a 3-percent increase compared to the previous year and an 11-percent increase from the 2010 survey. However, only 48 percent said business has grown in the past 12 months compared to 51 percent in 2011.
Among other survey findings, “quality” and “product cost” were the most cited factors for evaluating outsourcing vendors, with 49 percent and 39 percent, respectively. As for where manufacturers outsource, “Local vendors—up to 100 miles” was the most popular pick at 42 percent, and more than half of those respondents cited “hands-on access/vendor visits” as the top reason for using local vendors.
The annual Design-2-Part survey was sent in June to manufacturing engineers and purchasing personnel who attended one of the eleven D2P Shows in the last year that take place in major manufacturing hubs across the United States. According to the organization, it yielded 436 responses from a fairly even cross section across all major manufacturing industries.
