A quote by Peter F. Drucker came across my desk the other day, and it struck me so strongly that I pinned it to my desktop. It said:

Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision.

What struck me wasn’t the wisdom in it — though certainly, it is true, as far as that goes — but how much it misses the mark, especially in 2020. If Drucker were writing that quote today, I feel confident he would say something like:

Whenever you see a successful business, you see the result of many courageous decisions to remain nimble and responsive instead of comfortable and complacent.

Regardless of who wins the election or the strong and conflicting divisions in public opinion, it seems clear to me that investments in the manufacturing sector are overdue. With that in mind, I wanted to draw attention to a presentation by our Thermal Group sister publication, Industrial Heating, at the recent Furnaces North America virtual show. Our group publisher, Erik Klingerman, spoke with Harry Moser, the founder and president of Reshoring Initiative. Reshoring Initiative offers a number of free tools to help manufacturers begin to reevaluate offshoring as a part of its business.

During the nearly 40-minute session, available on YouTube at https://youtu.be/U5RJsmgL1Ss, Harry Moser notes that shorter supply chains are more profitable for OEMs and suppliers. About 900,000 manufacturing jobs have come back to the U.S. since 2010, and the Reshoring Initiative’s goal is to increase that number to 5 million.