B E ST PR ACTI C E S
MOVING THE CHAINS Trade, tech and disease have CEOs rethinking their supply networks. Some strategies. BY DALE BUSS
W
32 / CHIEFEXECUTIVE.NET / MARCH/APRIL 2020
ATERLOGIC AMERICAS HAS BEEN MANUFACTURING workplace drinking-water machines in China for 25 years and shipping them to the United States, but the company is moving output of its products for the domestic market to a 110,000-square-foot plant it just built in Dallas. Manufacturing costs will be as much as 15 percent higher there, but lower transportation outlays will offset much of that. The imposition of a 25 percent U.S. tariff on Waterlogic’s imports from China played a big role in the decision, which came way before the coronavirus epidemic began jangling global supply chains in January. “We’d been considering building another plant for most of a decade, and 18 months ago we began researching whether it was feasible,” says Casey Taylor, CEO of the U.S. arm of United Kingdom-based Waterlogic. “Then the tariffs kind of pushed it over the edge.” Waterlogic’s move is an apt illustration of the new dynamics of the supply chain. President Donald Trump’s tariff war with China, overhaul of the long-standing trade pact with Mexico and Canada
