We spoke with a wire manufacturing industry professional with more than two decades of experience across production, sales, and executive roles in the sector, about the reshoring narrative, what it’s actually meant for wire demand so far, and what realistic expectations look like going forward. The following is an edited version of that conversation.
Wire Factory News: The reshoring narrative has been prominent for several years now. What’s your honest assessment of what it’s meant for wire demand so far?
It’s real, but it’s slower than people expected, and I think part of the reason is that commentary tends to focus on the announcement phase of these projects rather than the actual capital deployment and construction phase. When a major facility gets announced, the coverage makes it sound like demand is about to surge. What’s actually happening is the start of a multi-year process where you need to get permits, finalize engineering, break ground, construct, install equipment, and eventually start production. Wire demand, particularly for the kinds of infrastructure and manufacturing applications we serve, shows up at the construction and installation stage, not at the announcement stage. And most of these large projects are several years away from that stage.
So when do you actually expect to see the wire demand from reshoring projects in any meaningful volume?
My view is that we’re probably two to three years out from the bulk of the construction-phase wire demand from projects that have been announced and are genuinely moving forward. Some of that demand is already showing up in specific project work — grid upgrades, data center construction, some early manufacturing facility work — but the headline semiconductor fabs, EV battery plants, and pharmaceutical facilities that have gotten the most coverage are mostly still in the planning and early construction phases where wire consumption is modest relative to what full facility construction involves.
Does the industry have the capacity to meet that demand when it does arrive?
That’s the right question, and honestly I’m not certain it does in some specific wire product categories. Certain high-specification wire products — fine wire for specialized electrical applications, specific alloy grades for demanding industrial applications — have supply chains that were already fairly tight before reshoring became a major policy theme. Adding significant new demand to already-tight supply chains creates the potential for bottlenecks that could affect project timelines for downstream customers who haven’t thought carefully about wire supply as part of their procurement planning.
What should companies in the wire industry be doing now to position themselves for this demand?
The companies that are positioning well are doing a few things. They’re having conversations with the EPC contractors and large manufacturers who are driving reshoring projects about their wire specification requirements well ahead of the actual procurement phase, which helps them understand what’s coming and helps the customer understand what’s realistically available and at what lead time. They’re being realistic about their own capacity and lead times rather than overpromising on volume that they can’t actually deliver, because a reputation for reliability matters more in a tight-supply environment than in a loose one. And some of them are making capital investments now to add capacity in the specific product areas where they see the clearest demand signals, which takes courage when the timing of that demand is still somewhat uncertain.
Any aspects of the reshoring story that you think are underappreciated?
The workforce dimension is underappreciated. Reshoring projects require skilled manufacturing workers, and there aren’t enough of them right now. That’s a constraint on how fast new manufacturing facilities can actually reach full production, and it’s a constraint on the wire industry’s own ability to expand capacity because we compete for the same pool of skilled tradespeople and technicians. I don’t hear enough serious discussion of workforce development as part of the reshoring conversation — it tends to be treated as someone else’s problem to solve, when actually it’s a critical path item for whether any of this actually happens at the pace the policy ambitions imply.
Final thought — are you optimistic or cautious about the wire industry’s outlook over the next five years?
Both, honestly. The structural demand drivers are genuinely positive — grid modernization, renewable energy build-out, electrification trends all support wire demand in ways that aren’t dependent on any single policy decision holding together. But there’s real execution risk in how quickly any of this translates into actual production and actual wire purchasing, and there are supply chain and workforce constraints that could create frustrating bottlenecks even when the demand signal is clear. I’d say cautiously optimistic, with a heavy emphasis on the cautiously.
