Investing in Tooling Innovation is Key to Reshoring Success

07:30 am by Ted Sorom 3D Printing 3D Printing Materials 3D Printing Services Business Metal 3D Printing Sponsored

Sponsored by

Share this Article

Outsourcing and retirement have dramatically shrunk the manufacturing workforce in the U.S., creating a challenge to efforts at reshoring production production. Pictured here is a toolmaker assembling an injection mold, a highly skilled but hard-to-find role that is the backbone of mass manufacturing.

Local manufacturers have faced significant challenges since the start of the decade — from supply chain disruptions and geopolitical uncertainties to rising energy and transportation costs. Reshoring production from Asia has been identified as the common solution that is a win for manufacturers and consumers. In fact, some sectors report the greatest number of OEMs attempting to reshore in almost two decades¹.

However, bringing back manufacturing doesn’t mean simply returning the processes of the past to the factories next door. The employment landscape has shifted, and the jobs of the past just don’t cut it in today’s world. Traditional manufacturing jobs, perceived as repetitive, manual tasks with declining benefits, aren’t appealing to workers in service-driven economies². The big problem for local manufacturers is that labor productivity in the manufacturing sector has declined over the past ten years³ despite some advances in automation technology.

One reason for this decline in productivity is the lack of investment in improving how we make things. According to the National Science Foundation⁴, only 23% of U.S. manufacturers are engaged in process innovation, and the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation found that Chinese manufacturers use 12 times more robots than their U.S. counterparts⁵.

Discussions around automation and advanced manufacturing techniques often reduce their impact to static metrics, such as the number of jobs created or lost. Labor-intensive jobs in unfavorable conditions and slow-moving, outdated operations are the stereotypes of the manufacturing industry — and the pace at which we’re investing to change that isn’t keeping up to attract skilled workers. Automation and radical new ways of manufacturing aren’t destroying jobs as much as changing them. The World Economic Forum estimated that automation is expected to create 97 million new jobs⁶. As we see automotive and aerospace companies invest heavily in automation, we see new high-skill roles in advanced manufacturing that offer engaging technical opportunities and fulfilling careers.
Schneider Electric, a leading global specialist in energy management, recently opened a next-generation facility in Shreveport, La. with a tenfold increase in automation that created 30% more skilled jobs. As Aamir Paul, President of North American operations, highlighted during a TIME100 talk, “There’s just not enough people in the U.S. So, if we’re going to keep the GDP growth we require, if we’re going to keep the U.S. this economic engine of the world, we’re going to need to find ways to engage people differently.”

Companies like Westminster Tool in Connecticut are investing in both automated manufacturing cells and comprehensive employee training helping raise their attractiveness to new hires. Pictured here is their automated sinker EDM cell.

However, large corporations that can bear the implementation costs of new technological investments are not necessarily those with the biggest need for automation innovation. A survey from the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) found that, compared to large manufacturers, over 30% more of small producers cite difficulty in finding skilled workers as one of their top business challenges. Trying to overcome this, we do see some investments in innovative processes at local manufacturers — the machine shops, molders, foundries that are the backbone of U.S. production.

iRT Wheels, a California-based manufacturer frustrated with high costs and long lead times from overseas suppliers, leveraged 3D printing to rapidly produce wheel hubs in-house. Over two years, the reshoring initiative reduced costs by $100,000, drastically cut lead times, and led to the company creating new jobs domestically⁷.

Or Demir Engineering, a materials solutions and engineering service provider in the heart of Alberta’s oil sands, that invested in 3D printing to produce molds and cores for sand casting. Downtime of critical oil and gas operations can cost $40,000 per hour⁸, so reducing the turnaround time for a cast bronze replacement part from six months to five days has led to significant cost savings and efficiency gains.

Yet, the status quo for 3D printing is advancing such low-volume, high-value niche applications. A more significant impact lies in transforming the mass production manufacturing methods that produce the things that surround us in our homes, hospitals, vehicles, and lives.

Reshoring initiatives have sharply increased the demand for plastic molded parts, and, thus, demand for the tooling to produce those parts is also increasing. Tooling is the bottleneck of many mass production workflows. It’s often slow to produce and incredibly costly. The low labor costs of Asian toolmakers made it difficult for domestic companies to remain competitive and have caused the toolmaking workforce in the U.S. to shrink by half over the past quarter-century. This creates a challenge to localizing production.

We must also reconcile the fact that traditional “manufacturing jobs” aren’t what the U.S. wants or needs. Rather, creating “advanced manufacturing jobs” is our goal. These jobs attract future generations, are critical to economic security, and enable a strong domestic production base to help deliver shorter, more secure supply chains with increasing productivity.

The U.S. toolmaking industry has been in freefall for decades. This graph shows the staggering 50% decline in toolmakers over the last 25 years — a direct result of offshoring and shrinking talent pipelines. Those who haven’t adapted risk disappearing while the future belongs to those who innovate.

Innovation in the tooling used to mass produce the everyday products around us is a prime example of where advanced manufacturing technologies are critical to the success of reshoring volume manufacturing. Automating the fabrication of molds, dies, and fixtures with metal 3D printing accelerates production timelines, enabling more agile, competitive operations. The challenges outlined in this article are just some of the reasons my co-founder Steve Conors and I chose to found Mantle. Mantle’s metal 3D printing technology is designed specifically for precision tooling and can help eliminate months and tens of thousands of dollars off traditional tooling fabrication cycles. While the end-use parts and production methods stay the same, Mantle’s additive technology can automate up to 95% of a tool build and add value throughout the process. And autonomous does not mean humanless. Minimal hands-on user interaction during the Mantle mold manufacturing process is replaced with 3D printing workflows that occur before and after the actual production. This allows employees to be more flexible and focus on high-value tasks that maximize performance and throughput. 3D printing metal tooling allows manufacturers to regain control, making tooling a strategic advantage, not a barrier to success.

Pictured here: Mantle’s automated toolmaking technology in action. By combining precision metal 3D printing with traditional machining, Mantle is transforming how molds are made — faster, smarter, and with fewer skilled labor requirements. For moldmakers looking to survive and thrive, automation isn’t optional — it’s the future.

It is the embrace of cutting-edge technologies like additive manufacturing and automation that attracts workers to industrial sectors. Industry 4.0 is increasingly present in factories around the world and by using novel technology to automate manufacturing processes, domestic manufacturers can appeal to next-generation talent. This same talent is exposed to 3D printers as early as elementary school during their education.

This same automation is needed to deliver cost savings and make local manufacturing, including toolmaking, more efficient, drastically reducing production cycles and optimizing responsiveness to help reverse the recent decline in manufacturing productivity. The future of manufacturing lies not in simply bringing production back home — but in successfully shifting to a new era of flexible processes and a flexible advanced manufacturing workforce that are smarter, more agile, and that help manufacturers become more resilient to face future challenges.

See Ted Sorom speak on The Metal Toolbelt panel on February 4th at Additive Manufacturing Strategies 2025 and visit mantle3d.com for more information.