L A Aluminum Casting Company lost one customer to offshoring. That was 5 years ago. That customer's product was appropriate for China. It was extremely simple and they needed 1000's of parts per month. That is the only customer we ever lost to China or Mexico. On the other hand, we have brought numerous parts BACK from China and Mexico!!

The first company to call asking us to make parts for them because of complete failure in China was a wind generator company in Arizona. We had been making parts for this customer for over 12 years. They were growing rapidly and wanted to open the market in China for their product. Well, after great expense, two years of quality issues, and a pipeline from Arizona to Hong Kong flooded with scrap parts, they called L A Aluminum. I went down to visit this customer. They showed me a machined part that had powder coating flaking off in big chunks. The aluminum underneath was a powdery substance. I said, "I don't know what that is, but that isn't aluminum! This customer had experienced all of the primary drivers pushing manufacturing BACK to the United States. The Chinese company had very poor quality standards. They switched material without notifying the customer of the change. The aluminum was switched from A356 aluminum to something else. And, when they had a bad part in their supply chain, the supply chain stretched around the world and they had nothing to assemble!

L A Aluminum makes custom permanent mold machined castings for the OEM market. We also powder coat and anodize our castings. Mechanical properties are critical in most applications we serve. Changing alloys has HUGE ramifications which could create a safety hazard, as well as a performance problem. This customer's parts needed to be beautiful in appearance. What I saw on my visit to Arizona wasn't pretty! When the Chinese parts were received, if any met the appearance criteria, they couldn't be assembled because the machining was incorrect. We manufacture to fairly tight tolerances. China struggles with exacting detail work, especially close tolerance 5th and 6th axis machining. So, the ending for this example is, L A Aluminum is making 5 more castings for this customer, making the cable assembly and powder coating everything! This work allowed us to build 10,000 square feet of additional manufacturing space for our NEW custom powder coating cell! Woo HOO!

The next call I received was from a company that makes diamond encrusted wire. This wire is used to cut carbon for fuel cells and sapphires for LED lights. This customer has another location off-shore. They were reviewing prices and realized that L A Aluminum was less expensive than China for both locations! I asked if I could use that testimonial and took an order for all of their spools all over the world!! We were less expensive for several reasons. The first-L A Aluminum is a single-source supplier. By manufacturing the entire product from tooling to coating and assembly we eliminate the cost and expense of multiple suppliers. The second reason we save our customers enough money to compete with China is, we do the job right the first time. Poor quality costs are high, especially in a long supply chain. We deliver on-time. We have become a lean, mean, manufacturing MACHINE! We have a strong core of well-trained employees who have been with us for 10-30 years! We have eliminated waste over the last 3 years as most manufacturers have done. We have very high efficiency. And finally, L A Aluminum makes beautiful castings. We are known for our excellent machining capabilities in 4th and 5th axis machining. Our parts are beautiful!!

I have 4 other customers we have facilitated in moving work BACK to the United States. When I tell people of our successful re-shoring, we are affirming the United States as THE BEST manufacturing market in the world. That has never changed. You just haven't heard it very often recently. The truth never changes.