Global companies are planning more regional approaches to manufacturing, selling

In September, global third-party logistics behemoth C.H. Robinson announced a new 400,000-square-foot cross-border facility in Laredo, Texas. The facility increased the company’s presence in the region to 1.5 million square feet.

But, C.H. Robinson is merely responding to what has been an unprecedented surge in manufacturing in Mexico. In the first six months of 2023, freight volumes moving into the U.S. increased 20%, Mike Burkhart, C.H. Robinson’s vice president for Mexico, told Supply Chain Management Review.

In August, an AlixPartners put further data behind the trend. Noting nearshoring was being helped by the passage of new regulations and legislation in the U.S., including the CHIPS Act, Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, Inflation Reduction Act, and the Build America, Buy America Act as well as the introduction of tariffs in the 2018 to 2020 timeframe on imported goods from China to the U.S., the firm pointed to an acceleration of the trend in recent years.

“These incentives and policies should be viewed as strategic funding support, which, when coupled with automation, can bring down the cost of procurement and reductions in tariff and freight expenses,” it said, adding that “the U.S. may be at the beginning of a nearshoring revolution as the total-cost-and-risks-of-ownership (TCRO) equation in a disaggregated supply chain is being re-written by technological advancements (AI/generative AI and automation) along with policies and regulations.”

Now, another report, this one by global consulting firm Accenture, backs up that assertion and points to how large the nearshoring trend, not only in the U.S., but globally, could become. According to the report, regional sourcing and production are important to becoming less vulnerable to disruption, it said, and companies must also increase their digital maturity.

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