Maintenance Mindset: Rebuilding American manufacturing — Leadership strategies for plant managers

In the past 40 years, I have had the distinct pleasure of visiting and helping explore problems and providing solutions to a multitude of factories across the globe. Now, if you walk through any modern U.S. plant, and you’ll see it has highly skilled teams, precision processes, and world-class productivity. 

American manufacturing doesn’t suffer from inefficiency, it suffers from a disconnect:

• On one side: consumers expecting low-cost goods.
• On the other: the rising cost of building those goods at home, with fair wages, clean energy, and tight compliance standards. 

Reconciling that gap isn’t just an economic exercise, it’s a leadership challenge. It requires plant leaders, reliability engineers, and maintenance professionals to become advocates not just for uptime, but for economic resilience.

Hidden costs of offshoring: How global sourcing undermines U.S. manufacturing stability

The U.S. lost over 5 million manufacturing jobs between 2000 and 2020. Much of that was due to offshoring often justified by cheaper labor and lower overhead. But what’s often missing in that calculation are the hidden costs:

• Supply chain fragility, as seen during COVID-19 and global port bottlenecks.
• Loss of institutional knowledge and skilled labor pipelines.
• Environmental and ethical compromises made in pursuit of low prices.

As plant professionals, we understand system thinking. We know that short-term gains often mask long-term vulnerabilities. That’s why now is the time to build domestic capabilities that last.

Four practical strategies to balance cost efficiency and manufacturing capability

As a practitioner of failure analysis and product development, I will offer a few ideas to structure a revival. It is based on looking at the situation as if it was an industrial problem occurring on the shop floor…because it is. 

1. Make policy personal

Plant managers can help shape the policy conversation. That means tracking and participating in:

• Reshoring tax credits,
• Workforce development funding,
• Energy and sustainability incentives.

If your plant benefits from local procurement or capital investment incentives, speak up. Share your results. Let data do the advocacy.

2. Educate internally and externally

Most people from the front office to the front line don’t realize how their purchasing decisions ripple through the system. Educate teams, vendors, and even customers:

• What’s the total cost of ownership?
• How do long lead times affect downtime?
• How does domestic control improve agility?

When you connect performance KPIs to supply chain localization, you elevate the conversation.

3. Invest in smart automation

The productivity gap between U.S. and offshore factories narrows drastically with:

• Autonomous inspection systems,
• IIoT for condition monitoring,
• Flexible automation that adapts to demand, and
• Additive manufacturing for low-volume, high-mix runs.

Use downtime data to build the ROI case. Smart investment isn’t about reducing headcount, it’s about amplifying human expertise.

4. Redefine value on the plant floor

Your plant has the power to help redefine what a “good deal” really is. That includes:

• Repairable, serviceable equipment designed with lifecycle in mind.
• Maintenance-friendly designs that reduce waste.
• Partnerships with vendors who offer reliability—not just discounts.

When your maintenance culture values long-term reliability, the purchasing department eventually follows.

U.S. factory success stories: Reshoring, automation, and skilled job creation

Craftsman / Stanley Black & Decker invested $90 million in a Texas facility with advanced automation, reshoring tool production from overseas. The result? Reduced lead times and quality gains while creating hundreds of skilled jobs.

Parkdale Mills, based in North Carolina, is using automated spinning equipment to make U.S.-grown cotton globally competitive, —proving that even legacy industries can be reborn through innovation.

Tesla’s Gigafactories in Nevada and Texas demonstrate that complex, high-volume manufacturing can thrive domestically when vertically integrated, highly automated, and co-located with engineering talent.

Hardinge Inc. in New York is thriving by building precision tools with a local supply chain, maintaining total control over quality and innovation.

Operational leadership: How plant managers can drive manufacturing resilience and growth

These success stories aren’t anomalies – they’re roadmaps.  Manufacturing won’t be rebuilt by slogans. It will be rebuilt by the people who keep the lights on, the lines running, and the equipment reliable. 

Here’s what you can do today:

• Audit your supply chain risk the way you audit safety or energy.
• Champion local vendor sourcing and in-plant reliability data to drive procurement.
• Train and mentor the next generation of maintenance and reliability professionals.
• Advocate for upskilling programs and technology investments that secure your plant’s future.

At the intersection of reliability, sustainability, and strategic investment lies the future of American manufacturing. The shift won’t be easy —but it will be worth it. 

Let’s be clear: we can’t afford to keep buying cheap if it costs us our ability to make. 
It’s time to rebuild, not just equipment, but trust, resilience, and national capacity. And it starts on the plant floor.