My managing editor Don Loepp's blog posting "Bringing work back to America" reminded me of my experience covering the International Housewares Show in Chicago in the spring.

The show guide suggested a new record of international exhibitors, but since I was the only Plastics News reporter there, I decided to make the domestic U.S. market and industry my priorities. So, I went after the American companies that have kept manufacturing in the States. At their booths, I had to say upfront that, despite my Asian face and accent, I work for Plastics News, serve the U.S. plastics industry and would like to write about how businesses can survive and thrive by staying in this country. You bet some of them didn't manage to disguise their confusion and suspicion. But as conversations went on, they trusted me and appreciated my effort.

The trend story I put together from that show, "Firms find U.S. market favorable", features at least one example of bringing outsourced plastic tooling and molding work back to America. Designer Philip Seldon got burned by a dishonest Chinese vendor and switched to a custom molder in the Midwest.

Is that concrete evidence that plastic manufacturing is flowing back to America?

In my opinion, this type of individual business failure doesn't mark the trend. Many more Western companies have had better luck for good reasons such as strict due diligence.

There could be so many different reasons for a company to move manufacturing (or outsourced work) back from overseas. To name just a few: 1) bad experience with vendors, partners, suppliers, local government, employees in China, 2) updated product portfolio and pursuit of short lead-time or customization, 3) good utilization of automation, 4) overheated competition from improving Chinese competitors, and 5) finding the made-in-USA label sells really well in China. I don't rule out legit reasons like being fed up with pollution and tainted food in China.

The overall rising costs in China, from wages to taxes and to utilities, are definitely in the spotlight. But does it make sense to pull work in China all the way back to America? To some extent. American businesses may have realized through the years, from observing work transfer first to Mexico and then to Asia, that no country will be low-cost forever. They may have decided to jump out of the business that depends heavily on cost and invest in real value-added products, things that the Chinese can't copycat in an economical way.