Monday, July 7, 2008

McCain's poster child

Via Talking Points Memo comes the news that Crocs is the poster child that McCain discusses here for the success of US manufacturing

According to this filing at the SEC though ...
Our strategy is to maintain a flexible, globally diversified, low-cost manufacturing base. We operate our own production facilities in North America, and we also contract with third party manufacturers located around the world. We believe our in-house manufacturing capabilities enable us to rapidly make changes to production, providing us with the flexibility to quickly respond to orders for high-demand models and colors throughout the year, while outsourcing allows us to capitalize on the efficiencies and cost benefits of using contract manufacturing. We believe that this production strategy will enable us to continue to minimize our production costs and increase overall operating efficiencies as well as shorten production and development times to better serve our retail customers.

The process for manufacturing our footwear was developed over an eight year period of continual refinement to improve consistency, softness, durability and yield. Prior to October 2004, all of our footwear was manufactured at Foam Creations's facility in Quebec City, Canada. In the six months ended June 30, 2006, we manufactured approximately 24.6% of our footwear products at our company-operated manufacturing facilities in Quebec City and Mexico. We obtain the remainder of our footwear products from third party manufacturers in China, Florida, Romania and Italy. In the six months ended June 30, 2006, a supplier in China produced approximately 51.8% of our footwear unit volume. We have long-term contracts with third party manufacturers in Italy and Florida, but do not have a written supply agreement with our primary third party manufacturer in China. During 2006, we intend to further expand our manufacturing capacity at the facilities we operate in Mexico and Canada

Yes, you read that correctly .... 75% of manufacturing for Crocs is done outside of North America and 0% is done in the US by company owned facilities (they do not break out how much work that 3rd party Florida facility does but I am guessing not a lot). Now, I am a Canadian working and living in the US on a TN (NAFTA) visa so I am more than thrilled to see jobs going to Canada but is this really the poster child that he wants for his economic programme?

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