"Made In The United States" Warming Up Footwear Production Ahead Of China'S Investment

Doug Clark (Doug Clark), employment system shoes For more than 30 years, he has been looking for cheap shoemaker workers for his New England Footwear, an outdoor adventure shoe company, to visit around China in England. To this end, he has come to China more than 75 times.

But Clark is tired of training new staff because each training interval is shorter. Even the workers are fed up with the hard work of making shoes. The income is not high enough, and the shoe making workshop is dirty and hot. Workers want to go to the top end of the manufacturing food chain: they can sit in a quiet lab and assemble basic components into mobile devices.

"Thailand, China. Every recruit needs training. The flow of workers is getting faster and faster. Clark said, "if we want to continue to develop, we must find a new business process instead of looking for new employees."

Influenced by various factors, including new technology, rising production costs abroad and growing demand for "made in America" shoes, Clark is adopting a few methods used by American entrepreneurs in recent years to build shoe factories in the United States.

"This is not the case before," said Matt Priest, chairman of the US footwear distribution retailing (FDRA). (Matt Priest) About 99% of the shoes sold in the United States come from abroad. "Basically, fingers can be counted clearly," he said, referring to the number of shoemaking factories still in the US.

In order to help speed up the implementation of his plant plan and raise funds, Clark's new England shoe company is holding fund-raising activities, aiming to raise $150 thousand by November 4th.

Clark's career path is a reflection of global manufacturing development in many ways. In the 70s of last century, the American shoemaker chose to set up factories in South Korea at the fork in the road, then quickly moved to other Asian countries, such as China, to find a lower labor cost.

But now more and more manufacturers are being hit by the rising cost of doing business in China, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, which simply can not adapt to the trend of China's macro-economic development. China's annual inflation rate hit a 7 month high in September.

The pressure of inflation has also reduced the market share of "China's shoemaking" in the US. About 84% of the shoes currently manufactured in the United States are made in China - the lowest in seven years, according to FDRA.

According to Preston, more American shoemaker is considering finding a way out of China. FDRA's annual shoe shoe logistics and distribution conference ended recently in Long Beach, California. Many discussions revolve around how to solve the problem of rising costs.

"Businessmen have turned their attention to many other countries: Nicaragua, Ethiopia and Kampuchea," said preste. "Now is a new and changing era."

When many shoemaker eyes turn to the new production area. Clark pressed the bet on new England. New England has a wealth of manufacturing history. From 1880 to 1970, most of the shoe making innovations came from the region. The most important development is the "1888 birth" system. Shoe machine Device ". This machine can sew up the upper part of shoe and sole, and become the pioneer of large-scale manufacture of durable shoes.

By 1980s, more than 1.5 shoe factories had been developed locally, but the thirst for innovation declined.

At the same time, Clark just graduated from University of New Hampshire, that is, he joined Nike, and became a technician in the laboratory. There, Clark learned the basic knowledge of shoe design: how every point and how the design affects the wearer's action and comfort.

But when Clark was making experiments, the shoe factories nearby shut down one after another. At that time, he had seen the cracks in the footwear industry and the consequences of shifting production overseas.

"Even in 80s, we realized that there was something wrong with it." He said, "it is crazy to let the industry decline here."

By the middle of 2000, Clark had been leading innovation in another outdoor shoe and clothing company, Timberland. His team devised a new production technology: omitting most manufacturing steps, such as additional sewing needles and creating expensive iron shoe last, can still produce more lightweight and still solid shoes, and the labor force used is 50% less than that of traditional shoes.

"I think," Wow, we designed the labor force. " Clark, 57, recalls, "if you don't need labor, you don't need China." Clark eventually bought this innovative technology from Timberland and founded his own shoe making company in 2008.

Last week, Clark moved his 12 employees to the new headquarters of the new England shoe company in New Hampshire rahan. The new headquarters has an area of more than 10 thousand square feet, with offices and warehouses available.

Clark estimated that the new plant needed about 200 workers. His goal was to move half of the company's production in China to the United States by 2017. Eventually he hopes to move the entire company back to the United States.

Clark's new technology will increase productivity and save 70% of the labour force compared to building factories in Africa. If the production efficiency of the new England shoe company can be upgraded, the cost of shoemaking in the US will be basically the same as the labor cost in Asia.

"In the United States, we will pay employees about $30 thousand a year, which is far higher than the average wage of the Chinese footwear industry for 4500 dollars a year." Clark said. The main purpose is to use better production methods to reduce costs and thus turn into high wages for American workers.

Clark estimated that the new shoe factory will invest about 5 million dollars. Despite the fact that the "American manufacturing" movement has met this way, the small business owner has already invested two Chinese companies.

Clark talked to more than 50 Private Equity Firm in the United States, but they were fruitless. "In some ways, this result is ironic," he said.

Potential investors question " Made in America "How much is the desire of consumers to buy products?" he said, "but I believe there will be no better time than now."