TRINITY INDUSTRIES
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“ TECHNOLOGY HAS BEEN KEY IN IMPROVING VISIBILITY , SYNCHRONISATION AND COLLABORATIVE PLANNING WITH SUPPLIERS ”
— Mike Hegedus , Vice President Supply Chain Management and Procurement , Trinity Industries
Much of that evolution has been in strategy . As with many manufacturers , offshoring is increasingly becoming a crucial part of the mix . “ We segment our supply chain and certain parts make sense for offshoring such as commodity parts . We really leverage , for example , the low cost of steel and castings and forgings in China .” The attendant process of nearshoring is also increasingly a focus . “ The larger the parts and sub-assemblies need to be , the more efficient it is to use nearshore suppliers . We ’ ve migrated our production from the U . S . to Mexico and we continue to manufacture more in Mexico every year . We ’ re not just nearshoring to take advantage of low cost labor and manufacturing , it ’ s really about localising to get them near to our manufacturing plants .
“ In fact , we ’ ve gone a step further , where we ’ re now moving into a phase where we are co-locating suppliers on our facilities for even larger subassemblies – things that might not be effectively shipped on a truck . Making railcars , some of these subassemblies can be very large , so it makes sense for us .”
FEBRUARY 2020