WHAT WE LEARNED FROM THE U.S. MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY | CNCTECH

As USA Trip 2026 came to a close, CNCTech returned with new connections and potential opportunities for collaboration, along with valuable first-hand insights into how the U.S. manufacturing landscape is evolving.

The trip gave our team the opportunity to visit customer facilities, gain a deeper understanding of their operations and quality standards, and discuss sourcing strategies and real-world manufacturing challenges.

These open conversations, together with recent market research, helped us build a clearer and more practical picture of the U.S. manufacturing and supply chain landscape today.

SUPPLY CHAIN IS BEING RESTRUCTURED

Manufacturers are reassessing where they produce, where they source, and how their supplier networks are structured in response to growing resilience requirements and emerging sources of demand.

According to KPMG, the share of companies formally planning or actively executing reshoring increased from 10% to 26% within six months. However, 60% expect the process to take one to three years, given labor costs, capital requirements, and continued dependence on global supply chains.

At the same time, the AI boom is creating significant new demand for semiconductors and related infrastructure. 73% of semiconductor executives surveyed by KPMGidentified AI as the industry’s top revenue driver in 2026.

While reshoring is prompting companies to rethink their production footprint in pursuit of greater resilience, the AI boom is putting new pressure on manufacturing capacity. Together, these forces are accelerating broader supply chain restructuring from where production is located and how capacity is allocated to how supplier networks are built for the next phase of growth.

SMART MANUFACTURING IS ACCELERATING

Inside modern factories, automation, data, and connected manufacturing continue to gain momentum as companies look to improve productivity and make better use of available capacity.

Two parallel realities illustrate this shift in the U.S. market:

- - Technology investment is accelerating: In Deloitte’s survey of 600 manufacturing executives, 80% said they expect to allocate at least 20% of their improvement budgets to Smart Manufacturing, with investments focused on automation hardware, data analytics, sensors, and cloud computing.

- - The workforce shortage remains:Despite continued technology investment, U.S. manufacturing still recorded approximately 580,000 unfilled job openings as of July 2026, according to the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM).

Together, these figures reflect a dual challenge: improving productivity while addressing workforce pressure. Automation can increase output and reduce dependence on repetitive manual work, but increasingly integrated systems combining mechanical, electrical, controls, and data technologies also require a more highly skilled workforce.

As a result, Smart Manufacturingis moving beyond the question of equipment investment toward the broader challenge of connecting technology, processes, and people to achieve more effective operations.

SUPPLIER TRANSFORMATION

Across our conversations in the U.S., one signal stood out clearly: supplier evaluation is becoming more rigorous and more comprehensive.

According to KPMG, 94% of supply chain leaders surveyed are already investing in, or planning to invest in, stronger risk management and resilience over the next three years. This is placing greater emphasis on the stability, visibility, and controllability of individual suppliers.

Cost and capacity remain essential, but they are no longer enough on their own. Supplier evaluation is increasingly extending to quality consistency, responsiveness, technical support, and problem-solving capability.

This became particularly clear during USA Trip 2026. In one meeting with an automotive customer, a session originally scheduled for one hour extended beyond three hours, with approximately 40 questions, before CNCTech was selected for development as the customer’s first supplier in Vietnam.

In another meeting, a customer shared openly:

“We don't want to develop CNCTech as a supplier. We want to work with you as a partner.”

That statement reflects a broader shift in how many manufacturers are looking at their suppliers.

These conversations suggest that capacity may open the door, but reliability, responsiveness, and the ability to solve problems together increasingly determine the strength of a long-term relationship.

WHAT WE BRING HOME

These three trends show that U.S. manufacturing in 2026 is evolving in several directions at once:

- - Supply chains are being restructuredunder the combined influence of reshoring and new AI-driven demand, particularly in semiconductors.

- - Smart manufacturing is accelerating, raising expectations around productivity, workforce skills, and the ability to operate increasingly complex systems.

- - Supplier expectations are rising, expanding beyond cost and capacity to include quality, reliability, responsiveness, and long-term collaboration.

For CNCTech, these shifts also provide a clearer view of what a manufacturing supplier needs to prepare for the next stage.

Manufacturing capability remains the foundation. Alongside it, suppliers need to maintain consistent quality, understand customer products, control processes effectively, and respond quickly when requirements change.

USA Trip 2026 gave us a closer view of these issues through factory visits, technical discussions, and relationships that have been built over many years.