• After 15 years of manufacturing entirely in Asia, French sportswear firm Salomon SAS, decided it was time to start mak

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• After 15 years of manufacturing entirely in Asia, Frenchsportswear firm Salomon SAS, decided it was time to start makingits sports shoes at home. The challenge, in a country whereshoemaking died out years ago, was how to build the necessarysupply chain, writes The Wall Street Journal (May 7-8, 2022). • TheSalomon Meta Cross produced in France • The first phase was tobuild an automated sneaker factory in France. It also redesignedits shoes, drastically shrinking its supply chain by slashing thenumber of components in each sneaker by 2/3. (Salomon’s redesignedshoe has 26 parts, down from over 70 in its other models). Thatstill left the matter of sourcing materials in a region largelydevoid of suppliers. Until now it has sourced soles and other partsprimarily from China and Vietnam, two of the main centers ofshoemaking. • For decades, Western companies have made everythingfrom clothes to toys in Asia or Latin America, taking advantage ofcheaper labor and highly developed supply chains. But the businesscase for that practice has eroded in recent years amid repeatedshocks to the global economy, prompting many companies into arethink. Then from 2020 onward the pandemic brought waves offactory closures, as well as port blockages and truck shortages,disrupting supply chains and pushing up freight costs. Russia’sinvasion of Ukraine rattled global systems anew. • These criseshave made “reshoring”— the return of production to a company’s homecountry—increasingly attractive. Some 2/3 of U.S. and Europeanmanufacturers say they will bring some of their Asian productionhome by 2025, with 1/5 saying they will bring back most or all ofit. • Footwear production is particularly tricky to repatriate,because Asian shoemakers use cheap, plentiful, low-skilled labor.That model can’t be recreated in the West, prompting companies toturn to automation. The France-made shoes will be as profitable asthose made in Asia, thanks to savings from lower transportationcosts and the elimination of customs duties. • The new Salomonplant requires only 15 humans a shift; a typical shoe factory inAsia would require 5 times as many to match its output. Someoperate sewing machines—this intricate work is still best done byhand—while others monitor the automated production lines. If theFrench project is successful, Salomon wants to build a similarautomated plant in the U.S. to meet demand there. • Questions:
1. Why is this reshoring effort difficult? •
2. Of the 10 OM decisions in your Heizer/Render/Munson text,which directly relate to reshoring shoe manufacturing?