Mexico Supply Chain Services

Managing Mexico Supply Chain Services

NovaLink’s Mexico Supply Chain Services: We handle the shipment of equipment, raw materials, and finished goods across the U.S. / Mexican border. Exporting raw materials and finished goods across the border can be costly if mishandled. As a result, we aim to make this process seamless and invisible.  

Manufacturing in Mexico vs. China is an easy choice when considering options to shorten your supply chain. Here are just a few of the Nearshore Manufacturing Services offered by NovaLink:

    • Sourcing and Procurement
    • Inventory/Warehouse Management
    • Finished Product Distribution
    • Transportation
    • Customs Brokerage
Supply Chain Values

To understand the importance of a good supply chain to your manufacturing operations, click the graphic.

Supply Chain Questions You Should Answer Before Manufacturing in Mexico

You should always ask prospective manufacturing partners for specific supply chain metrics to make sure they’re capable of producing your product. Here are a few questions you should ask before reshoring manufacturing to Mexico:

  • Turnover rate: Is your partner able to sustain a labor pool for his projects and increase them when needed?
  • Factory costs: Is there some unforeseen overhead you may not have expected or need to plan for?
  • Transportation costs: Again, with regards to location, what are the average costs and expenses related to the transportation of your goods to market?
  • Port of Entry time for crossing trailers: If you have decided on a shelter manufacturing partner, what is the average time it takes for your goods to be transported across the border into the U.S.?

Why U.S. Companies Are Moving Their Supply Chains From China to Mexico

NovaLink believes manufacturing in Mexico with Mexico Supply Chain Services should be easy, fast, and cost-effective. Supply Chain Brain has a list of reasons why companies are moving their supply chains from China to Mexico.

Ground Transport

Goods can be imported from Mexico via ground transport in a matter of days or even hours. This is never an option for goods manufactured in China, from which everything must come by ocean or air. The former is very time consuming (it can often take weeks), and the latter is very expensive.

“Trusted Partner” Status for Customs

The U.S. offers two programs that help facilitate faster and easier Customs processing for U.S.-Mexico trade: FAST and C-TPAT. Initiated after 9/11, FAST is a trusted traveler/trusted shipper program that allows expedited processing for commercial carriers who have completed background checks and fulfill certain eligibility requirements (much like TSA Precheck for air travelers). FAST certification is for drivers; C-TPAT is a broader program that shippers must apply for. Once a company is certified for C-TPAT, its drivers can then apply for FAST. There are no such programs for U.S.-China trade.

A Transparent Landscape

There are also new modern options for transport that make Mexico attractive. Companies can coordinate door-to-door transportation between the U.S. and Mexico, including procurement of trucks on both sides of the border, customs clearance, insurance, financing, and reporting. This allows manufacturers to focus on their core competency, rather than logistics, and can also reduce the need for big in-house shipping and logistics teams.

Smaller Language Barrier

Spanish is the second-most common language spoken in the U.S., making it relatively easy to communicate with partners in Mexico (and find bilingual staff and vendors).

Time-zone Parity

Mexico operates on the same time zones found in the U.S. — Eastern, Central, Mountain and Pacific.

Find out More
Establishing manufacturing facilities overseas as a cost-saving measure for labor and production has been a common practice; however, businesses that want to start manufacturing operations in Asia consistently do not take into account the other costs that must be incurred with an overseas operation: the most important of these is shipping your completed items back to the US. Time to market and keep your supply chains open and running smoothly will be crucial to the success of your full service manufacturing operation.

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Do You Have a Minimum Order Quantity (MOQ)?
It is common practice in manufacturing to set a minimum order quantity (MOQ), which is the fewest amount of units that need to be purchased at once. Manufacturers or suppliers usually use MOQs for production runs, but a manufacturer can set them for different types of orders. At NovaLink, we do not establish relationships with our manufacturing partners based on MOQs, but rather through sustained production. NovaLink believes that having a consistent volume that engages full-time manufacturing teams year-round is the key to a successful, financially-viable manufacturing project. Partnering with NovaLink is not for “short runs” or products that require simple, machine-based production.

 

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