One company that strongly opposes offshore outsourcing is Hesperia, California, founded by Mer-Mar; Oddly enough, Mer-Mar is a contract manufacturing and installation company and, by definition, is an outsourcing manufacturer. With more than 30 years of experience in the assembly of printed circuit boards, Mer-Mar is an outsourcing supplier for other companies that do not consider the assembly of printed circuit boards as a core competency and / or do not want to invest their resources in their production.
The company assembles circuit boards for medical electronics, aerospace, automotive, entertainment and leisure, and the national security industry. Mer-Mar is an ISO-9001 certified consulting company of 50 highly qualified employees who comply with industrial quality standards. The company is a regional service provider and supplier of high-quality manufacturing, primarily in the southwest United States.
As a final service provider, Mer-Mar does not outsource offshore companies. The company's management also has a fundamental philosophy that considers offshore outsourcing as inappropriate for its customers who are in industries with high quality standards and urgent deliveries. While some of its larger competitors agreed to offshore outsourcing of various services, Mer-Mar resisted.
Mer-Mar customers rely on product quality, a history of dedicated customer service and the reliability of received orders when promised. Mer-Mar is also often asked to quickly complete orders for customers within a few days. To be flexible and responsive to its customers, requests and adequate support, Mer-Mar needs to stay close to its customers and its suppliers in order to ensure uninterrupted availability of their supply chain and a summary. Each of these characteristics is perceived as vital to the success of Mer-Mar and will be compromised if Mer-Mar outsource its production operations on the shelf.
With the positive reputation of Mer-Mar, several customers have recently transferred their PCB assembly operations to the shelf. As in other industries, attracting offshore outsourcing is the promised savings. However, Mer-Mar ensures that many companies do not recognize the higher costs of payment, which are often associated with offshore outsourcing.
These soft costs include additional staff to monitor operations at foreign plants; time and money associated with shipping and customs checks; processing costs for defective products; the lack of easily accessible spare parts; and problems of work in a foreign country, including communication problems, low-skilled labor, unfamiliar laws and regulations, and infrastructure constraints. Mer-Mar believes that these additional soft costs often exceed the promised savings, which initially lured the company on the shelf.
Mer-Mar's agreement that some low-level technologies or low-cost, low-cost products can be outsourced on the shelf, very complex assembly and / or products whose price is not a major obstacle, often remains in the United States. But customers who rely on high quality, advanced technology and skilled labor will have to keep their assembly manufacturers close to home.
For example, customers who need to assemble printed circuit boards for medical equipment for emergency medical care may not like the level of risk that offshore outsourcing firms represent. Instead, they may depend on local contract manufacturers, such as Mer-Mar, to do this work. Mer-Mar focuses on those customers in specific industries where the need for reliability, availability and repeatability outweighs the cost of access to shore.
Management at Mer-Mar recognizes that for large consumers of products, such as low-level electronics, including toys and video games, it makes sense to deliver outsourcing on the shelf. In these cases, cost savings are often realized, despite the modifications and failures of these products. They also believe that this is acceptable for offshore outsourcing services, when talent cannot be found within the country. In these situations, the company has no other alternative than to outsource.
However, offshore outsourcing is not an option for Mer-Mar. Nevertheless, thanks to the positioning of the Mer-Mar brand and the reputation of excellence in the assembly of high-tech and modern boards, customers continue to rely on them for these services. Thanks to its factory located in the cheaper, higher desert community of Hesperia, and focusing on quality, reliability and providing services to its customers, Mer-Mar continues to maintain its competitive advantages.
