Made There? Can't Come Here.

When F.C. Dadson first started out, we worked with companies based in the Midwest. Each project presented a few surprises, but nothing too big. As our customers started to grow nationally, we went right along with them. We learned a few more things along the way, but, again, nothing too major. Then our customers explored Canada and The Caribbean and we had to learn a lot about how to get our products into different countries -things like passing border inspections, charging and paying the right taxes and fees, and transporting goods across water to name a few.

As our customers expand even further from home base, we're learning new things every day. The lessons are often quite mundane and involve policies and regulations, but every once in a while, we learn something that catches us by surprise. Yesterday was one of those days.

On of our project teams is currently researching regulations and restrictions we'll be subject to as we build out a new international location for a client. It's the first build out we'll be doing in this country, so there's been a lot to go through, and yesterday they discovered that the country had strict rules about what countries products could and couldn't come from.

Working primarily in within the United States' borders, we often take "Country of Origin" for granted when specifying materials and buy-out items for our clients. With only a few exceptions, we are a country that accepts products from most other countries. So we've been free to find the best fitting products at the best prices. Moving forward, that may not always be the case.

That "Made in" or "Product of" label is such a small part of a product, but it is growing in importance as clients continue to take their concepts across the world.

--Troy Schwehr (Connect with me on LinkedIn.)