The research was carried out among 263 buyers of outsourced manufacturing services with a total annual spend of over £215 million. On average, 56% of manufacturing in their organisations was carried out in-house, with 44% outsourced.
Nearly a third of respondents, 31%, said that over the past three years they had increased the proportion of their manufacturing requirements placed with subcontractors.
The main reasons cited were: only wanting to focus on core competences in-house (45%); not having enough capacity in-house (41%); less expense than in-house manufacture; and not wanting to make capital investments in the processes outsourced (32%).
Looking ahead, 38% expected the amount of work placed with contract and subcontract manufacturers to increase over the next 12 months, with only 7% expecting it to decrease.
A quarter planned to place more of their work with UK suppliers in the next 12 months, with only 7% planning to decrease the amount of work given to British subcontractors. Over the next three years this rose to 33% expecting to place more work in the UK and 10% planning to place less.
A fifth (22%) said that they had brought work back to the UK in the past three years that used to be carried out in low-cost economies. The main reasons given for this were quality (75%), response time (57%) and improved communications with the supplier (45%).
