Sustainable onshoring contains a number of vital elements to increase sustainability and reduce environmental impact. One of the most important factors is being able to source materials natively, so that supply chains and production times are more streamlined, timely and cost-effective.
We began to incorporate onshoring in our manufacturing processes because of the pandemic and changes in the financial climate. However, it’s clear that there are attractions to this mode of production; we can create solutions using UK-based materials in a quicker turnaround time, meaning customers can benefit from receiving their orders in a more timely manner.
When products are created through offshoring, it’s usual practice to ship in a large wooden container that will effectively be scrapped at the end of the process. Plus, manufacturers like ourselves would often use componentry created in Europe which would then be shipped to China to create a product to be shipped back to us in the UK. Environmentally, this doesn’t make sense and increases the carbon footprint.
With onshoring, we gain the ability to constantly improve our products, which has benefits for us as a supplier and for our customer base. We can respond to and address customer demands or changes much quicker than if an offshore company is involved, enabling us to control our solutions and enhance our customer experience.
Onshoring At AdvaNova
At AdvaNova, we manufacture our kiosks onshore in the UK as the practical aspects of the process are really positive for this type of market. From a customer’s point of view, the benefit is the responsivity in the supply chain, meaning the usual offshore 3-month delivery timeline is cut in half by incorporating onshoring practices into our manufacturing.
When we started our onshoring exercise, we expected it to be relatively cost neutral. In fact, it’s become a beneficial part of our business. International shipping and container shipping have increased five-fold over the last 2 years to various record highs. We now assemble the unit at our manufacturing base, secure it in reusable protective wrapping and take the product directly to the customer.
As a result of the pandemic and the global supply chain crisis, there have been real difficulties in sourcing material. In fact, the fragility of that international supply chain has got people thinking about what they need to do and how best they can achieve their goals.
At AdvaNova, we believe this helps build collaborative relationships with other small companies that produce plastics, metal or electronic components, ultimately resulting in mutually beneficial partnerships.
How Is Onshoring Benefitting Our Customers?
We are now capable of onshoring and manufacturing our own electronics which has real client advantages. Including onshoring in our manufacturing process has transformed our speed of delivery and production. It’s also optimised our responsivity and deepened our market-based knowledge.
In addition, the onshoring world of manufacturing creates a special skill set of design and manufacturing capabilities, which is one of the reasons that we looked at taking on the consultancy and engineering streams in AdvaNova Consultancy. So, we’ve now got a fairly unique mix of product design and development knowledge in manufacturing which give us a uniquely competitive edge.
How Is Onshoring Influencing Future Decision-Making?
A growing global offshoring challenge is the availability of components, particularly electronic components. With our manufacturing capability, we’re able to adapt to that availability. If we arrive at a position where we aren’t able to find a specific electronic component, we will be able to quickly redesign and flexibly adapt to that situation, whereas if we were offshoring that manufacturing process, we just couldn’t be that agile.
An exciting aspect of our future growth is the consultancy arm of AdvaNova. There is such a potential for real evolution, particularly around onshoring, as we have such strong collaborations with companies producing great concepts and looking to translate these into innovative products. The consultancy is there to help that happen.
Going forward, AdvaNova Consultancy can help build our unique brand of products in order to bring original, intuitive concepts to market. We always want to build and produce solutions that meet and satisfy our customers’ needs.
In truth, a major development in our future will be to help other organisations through the onshoring process. We have such special skills sets in manufacturing that other businesses don’t necessarily have inhouse, so we can deliver expertise to other people who are looking for this type of support.
