Successful manufacturers go to great lengths to better serve their customers. Modula USA has gone nearly 4,000 miles - from Italy to Maine - to better serve its customers in North and South America.

Several companies discuss the challenges and benefits of bringing manufacturing back to the United States.

Tim Hutzel will never forget the first time, back in 1995, that he walked the shop floor at Hamilton Caster & Manufacturing Co., a maker of industrial wheels, casters, carts and trailers in Hamilton, OH. Hutzel had just left his job as director of lean transformation at GE Aviation to strike out on his own as a consultant and lean guru. Hamilton Caster was his first customer.

Many products made in low-wage countries could, in fact, be produced here economically. There are three reasons why they are not.

HUIZHOU, China—A Chinese supplier for Korean electronics giant Samsung uses children to make its products, hits workers on the factory floor, and punishes workers who make mistakes by forcing them to stand all daylong or write “self-criticism” reports, according to a labor advocacy group.

Offshoring has, quite simply, gutted the American middle class. But it took more than the presence of several hundred million unemployed Chinese to make offshoring feasible. Some are technological, some are cultural.