Reshoring: Problem & Utmaningar vid implementering En fallstudie om svenska tillverkningsföretags reshoringprocesser

Abstract

In opposition to offshoring, which is when companies move production abroad, a trend of reshoring has emerged in the last few years. Offshoring has for a long time been motivated by lower production costs, opportunities of producing larger quantities in addition to enabling companies to focus on their core competencies. During the last decades some problems with this have arised, for example with the supply chain, the companies global footprints and lack of control. These problems were even more highlighted due to the covid-19 crisis and the Ukraine war which have now made reshoring more interesting than ever. There are however some barriers with reshoring, which is, contrary to motives of reshoring, a relatively uncharted area. The aim of the thesis is therefore to contribute to current research by giving deeper insights into what barriers and difficulties that Swedish companies experience in their reshoring process by interviewing 6 companies in the Swedish manufacturing industry. The result of the study showed that the biggest and most-mentioned problem among the interviewed companies was that the length of the process was significantly longer than anticipated which is costly from both a time-and financial perspective. Regardless of planning beforehand, not all difficulties and problems could be foreseen and eliminated. In opposition to previous studies, high production costs were not as big of a problem as previously written. On the other hand, issues with former suppliers emerged as a common problem. However, the majority of the companies did not find the problems insuperable and afterwards they felt that reshoring was the right decision.