Have you taken a look at your supply lines and inventory management lately?

Good inventory management is probably more crucial in today's manufacturing world than ever before, and for plenty of reasons.  There are a lot of challenges facing modern manufacturing, and a lot of them have to do with good inventory management and optimization.

With the right inventory procedures and the right manufacturing partners, you can reduce the costs on your electronics while helping guarantee they're of top quality.

If you're looking to enter the electronics market, it's actually a great time!  There are more options in manufacturing both at home and abroad than ever before, and there are a lot of great companies out there waiting to build your product.

The problem, of course, is telling the good ones from all the rest.  In a boom industry, there are a lot of recent upstarts that lack the experience or the equipment needed to properly fill orders.  When you pick a PCB assembly service as a partner, you need to know they'll be someone you can rely on.

So, we've got a few tips to help weed out the top businesses from everyone else.

More and more companies are starting to return to the USA for manufacturing, and it's not hard to see why. When looked at in terms of long-term TCO and ROI, US and Chinese manufacturing prices are practically at parity.  In fact, Bloomberg found that America is the seventh cheapest source for manufactured goods in the world. 

And when you choose American manufacturing, you get far more for your money.  The combination of high-technology, robust supply lines, and a land of plenty means that the US is truly competitive in the field of global manufacturing.

Here are just a few services that are easily obtained from American electronics design and manufacture firms that you might have a hard time finding elsewhere...

It's become one of the "hot topics" of overseas manufacturing, although it's not one a lot of people like to talk about:  Counterfeits and other bootlegs.  It's a problem plaguing electronics across multiple industries,  Even the US military is having issues with it.

The longer and more globalized a supply chain is, the easier it is for counterfeit components to slip in.  Long supply chains are extremely difficult to oversee while, in the meantime, sometimes all it takes is a single corrupt factory manager making the swap.

Then you have no way of knowing what's in your product, and chances are, the end quality will be reduced as well.  That means higher post-sale support costs, and possibly even a full recall/reissue.  

With the right contract electronics manufacturing partner, you can easily take a product all the way from the idea phase to store shelves!  Good prototyping is the key to a successful product, and that's a process where both you and your manufacturing partner can contribute.

Your electronics manufacturer will be able to give you a lot of technical and engineering assistance, but a truly effective product needs to have focus to truly succeed.  That's where you come in.  With your knowledge of your market and customers, and your manufacturer's expertise, the PCB prototype assembly phase will help guarantee a great end product.

Let's talk a bit about what you should have in mind about your product, when talking to electronics prototyping services.

These days, the best electronics assemblers aren't mere assembly-lines-for-hire, they're full-fledged engineering manufacturing companies.  In response to the market threat of cheap overseas assembly, domestic manufacturers have been investing in expertise instead.

Modern domestic electronics partners are now full-featured engineering firms, with on-site staff that know their machinery and the current demands of the electronics market.  They keep up-to-date with the latest in industry certifications, allowing their systems to take advantage of the latest innovations.

Best of all, since the prices and cost-of-living have been rising steeply in most of the countries known for their cheap electronics, you can often get a full-featured domestic partner for little more than it would cost to hire an overseas firm.

When you look at the advantages of staying domestic, it makes a lot of sense.

The last decade or so has turned into a turbulent one for the Electronic Manufacturing Services industry.  The rise in inexpensive overseas assembly has forced other providers to step up their game, and start offering extensive service packages that overseas firms can't compete with.

This is good news for you, if you're shopping for an EMS partner.  It's a buyer's market, and you can pick and choose among the best in electronics assembly and the support services that go along with it.

Here are a few of the options currently on the table, which put domestic partners ahead of overseas assembly plants.

Nearly any company that's looking at entering an electronics market thinks long and hard about which contracted manufacturer to use in their design and construction.  Oddly, however, many companies often neglect to think ahead of time about post-sale support and, specifically, who's going to be handling their tech issues.

More and more, this requires sub-contracting another company, separate from the manufacturer, to train and staff a call center.  While this is a popular option -especially with the rise in virtualized support services- it can ultimately create a very poor customer experience while simultaneously driving up your support costs.

Now, however, there is an alternative.  American electronics firms looking to compete with cut-rate overseas factories have been expanding their range of services beyond mere PCB and electronics assembly.  One of the most valuable of these new services are direct PCB repair services. 

For small to mid-sized electronic companies, making the decision to outsource their assembly electronic processes is a bit of a no-brainer. The cost to work with a third-party professional is often much less than it would be to hire a full team of skilled laborers, and the burden of purchasing and maintaining expensive equipment is removed from your shoulders. When you've got an excellent outsource vendor on your team, you can remain competitive with larger-scale industries and grow your business.

The problem, though, is knowing who you can put your confidence in. Who will have the ability to take care of all of your needs - from design to fulfillment services? Who will process your batch orders in a timely manner? Who will construct your PC boards with the highest quality and most affordable parts? All of these questions must be answered before you can hire an outside company to assist with your product's electronic assembly. This post will help you to distinguish the best from the rest so that you can put your confidence in a superior contract manufacturer.     

With China possibly overtaking the US to become the largest economy in the world, many are taking this as confirmation that offshore electronics assembly will continue to be a major driving force.  And while it's true China remains a strong player in electronics services, there's a lot more to the picture than that.

Even if the claims are true, being biggest doesn't necessarily mean best.  The rush of manufacturers to move their services to China has helped create this new boom, but it's simultaneously created a number of new challenges for offshore assembly.

A company looking overseas for their electronics might be wise to consider changes in the economic landscape that have come about in the last few years.