Rethinking the Geography of Manufacturing

• The factory map is changing: McKinsey argues that global manufacturing footprints are being reshaped by geopolitical risk, supply-chain fragility, and the accelerating pace of technological change.

• Resilience over optimization: The era of purely cost-optimized global production is giving way to distributed manufacturing strategies that prioritize resilience, regionalization, and technological capability.

• Technology as the new anchor: As robotics and advanced automation mature, production location will increasingly be determined by infrastructure, talent, and technology ecosystems rather than just labor cost.

Source: “Decoding disruption to reshape manufacturing footprints”