Why Manufacturers Are Diversifying Spring Sourcing Beyond China

Over the last few years, procurement teams at OEMs and distributors across the US, Europe and Australia have been asking a version of the same question: should we still be sourcing 100% of our spring and wire hardware from a single country, or does it make sense to build in a second, independent supply option?

This isn't really about any one country being "better" — it's about risk. A few forces are driving the shift:

Tariff and trade policy volatility

Trade policy between the US and China in particular has changed direction more than once in recent years, and each shift changes landed cost overnight for anyone sourcing single-country. A second qualified supplier in a different country means a pricing and policy shock in one region doesn't halt your entire supply chain.

Freight and logistics disruption

Port congestion, container shortages and shipping route disruptions have shown that concentrating supply in one geography creates a single point of failure. Diversifying sourcing geography is a direct hedge against this.

Lead time and capacity pressure

As demand recovers and factories run closer to full capacity, having a second qualified manufacturer gives you somewhere to place overflow orders without waiting behind larger customers.

Quality and communication concerns some buyers report

This varies enormously by individual supplier and shouldn't be generalized, but it's a factor some procurement teams cite when evaluating a second source.

India has become one of the more common "plus one" destinations specifically for spring and wire hardware manufacturing, for a few concrete reasons: English-language business communication removes a real friction point, ISO-certified manufacturing capacity has expanded significantly over the past decade, and India's trade relationships with the US, EU and GCC countries have generally remained more stable than some alternatives.

None of this means switching your entire supply chain overnight — that's neither realistic nor necessarily wise. The more common, lower-risk approach we see is: qualify a second manufacturer with a smaller trial order, run it alongside your existing supply for a period, and only shift meaningful volume once that second supplier has proven consistent over several orders.

We manufacture custom compression, extension and torsion springs, along with wire forms and fasteners, from an ISO 9001:2015 certified factory in Gurgaon, India, and currently export to 14 countries. If you're exploring a second-source relationship rather than a full switch, our guide on vetting a spring manufacturer covers exactly what's worth checking before that trial order.