Charles Fishman’s latest feature in The Atlantic examines the potential return of American manufacturing from China. Here’s a few bullet points that sum up Fishman’s fantastic article:

• More factory jobs are returning to the United States—probably to stay.
• Not only can you make dishwashers (and other appliances) better in America than you can in China or Mexico—but companies are beginning to find ways to make them cheaper at home.
• The outsourcing “boom” didn’t save companies money. There was a notion that chasing the lowest cost and sending manufacturing overseas would help to cut down on production costs, but as Fishman says, “they didn’t do the math right, and they didn’t save money.”
• Factories are, really, research and development labs. By bringing factory work back to America it means that, over time, companies can learn how to improve their products. When you construct something day in and day out, you learn all about the product and can then learn how to make the product better in terms of efficiency in construction and usefulness for the consumer.