u/syspro_global

A lot of the conversation around reshoring focuses on whether it's the right move.

I don't hear nearly as much about what happens once the decision has been made. In my opinion, that's when the real work starts.

New suppliers need onboarding, planning assumptions change, lead times shift, and costing models must be revisited. Processes that worked well in one supply chain suddenly don't fit another.

None of that means reshoring is the wrong decision. It just reminds us that changing a strategy is usually quicker than changing an operation.

For those who've reshored or nearshored, what surprised you most once implementation got underway? Was it supplier onboarding, planning, inventory, costing, something you never saw coming?

A lot of the conversation around reshoring focuses on whether it's the right move.

I don't hear nearly as much about what happens once the decision has been made. In my opinion, that's when the real work starts.

New suppliers need onboarding, planning assumptions change, lead times shift, and costing models must be revisited. Processes that worked well in one supply chain suddenly don't fit another.

None of that means reshoring is the wrong decision. It just reminds us that changing a strategy is usually quicker than changing an operation.

For those who've reshored or nearshored, what surprised you most once implementation got underway? Was it supplier onboarding, planning, inventory, costing, something you never saw coming?

A lot of the conversation around reshoring focuses on whether it's the right move.

I don't hear nearly as much about what happens once the decision has been made. In my opinion, that's when the real work starts.

New suppliers need onboarding, planning assumptions change, lead times shift, and costing models must be revisited. Processes that worked well in one supply chain suddenly don't fit another.

None of that means reshoring is the wrong decision. It just reminds us that changing a strategy is usually quicker than changing an operation.

For those who've reshored or nearshored, what surprised you most once implementation got underway? Was it supplier onboarding, planning, inventory, costing, something you never saw coming?

I've been seeing more AI tools that can reprioritise jobs, adjust schedules and even recommend purchase orders.

What I'm struggling to figure out is where people are actually drawing the line.

Are these tools just making recommendations that planners review? Or are you letting them make changes automatically and only stepping in when something looks off?

I'm curious how this works in the real world, especially in environments where production plans change constantly.

If you're using AI today, what's it actually responsible for, and what would you never hand over?

One thing manufacturing has taught me is not to trust the obvious problem.

If production is behind, production isn't always the problem. If inventory is wrong, inventory isn't always the problem.

Most operational issues have a history, but by the time they're causing disruption, the real cause is usually several steps back.

That's what makes root-cause analysis so valuable. It shifts the conversation from "How do we fix today's issue?" to "How do we stop this happening again?"

It's not always easy, but it's usually where the biggest improvements come from.

In your experience, what's the most difficult issue for your team to spot before it becomes a problem?

I was chatting to an operations manager recently who said, "If John retires, we're going to spend six months figuring out everything he never wrote down."

It got me thinking because I suspect that's more common than most businesses would like to admit.

Every manufacturing operation has those people: the operator who hears when something’s off, the planner who remembers why a process changed, and the supervisor who fixes issues before anyone else notices.

Isn’t the challenge then to make sure their knowledge doesn't disappear with them?

I've always believed that good processes should outlive the people who created them. The strongest operations are built on knowledge that's been captured, shared, and improved over time, after all.

How is your business preparing for the transfer of institutional knowledge? Or is too much of it still sitting in the heads of your most experienced people?