Staffing for manufacturers, everywhere except the plant floor

Where the past due backlog actually comes from

A manufacturer sells parts and delivery dates, and pays for both in salaries that never touch a machine. The planner who runs MRP, the buyer who chases acknowledgments, the person who keys the order and the one who fights the chargeback. When one of those seats sits open, the shortage report gets built by whoever has time, and the ship date moves.

If your buyer or planner seat has been open long enough that expediting is being done by whoever picks up the phone, that is the seat this page is about. If your plant sits in a small city, the office labor pool for those seats is thin. And the ERP you paid a lot for only does what somebody has the hours to make it do.

One person, in your ERP, on your account

The contractor works inside your ERP, on your part numbers and your open orders. Whichever one you run: Epicor Kinetic, Plex, QAD, Global Shop, E2, Business Central, SyteLine and IQMS, whatever the vendor calls them now. Your system goes into the scope before the search opens and the skills test is built around it, not a generic module list. The seat is dedicated to your account alone and the contractor reports to your materials manager or your controller. The contract with the contractor, the contracting and tax obligations in their country, and paying them are ours. You get one monthly invoice.

Senior and Tier 3 technical seats, such as the Tier 3 service desk technician covering plant users, run $3,500 to $4,500 a month. That covers the contractor, the contracting and compliance work behind them, and the day to day support around the seat. Every other seat on this page is quoted per role: service desk at Tier 1 and Tier 2, planning, purchasing, ERP data, quality documentation, order processing and the accounting seats. Scope decides the price, not the job title.

We recruit from the Philippines and Southeast Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe and South Africa. We do not recruit in, and will not place a contractor living in, a sanctioned or access restricted country, and that screen runs before you ever see a name. An international contractor costs a fraction of a comparable US hire, and that is the obvious part. What matters more is reach. The model works on the gap between labor markets, not on paying anyone poorly.

Export control is settled before the search opens

The contractor works from their own country, and that is the whole reason this gets settled first. Controlled technical data counts as exported the moment someone outside the US can reach it, even when no file ever leaves your server. Not being a defense shop does not settle the question either: one product line can be controlled and change what a seat is allowed to see. So you tell us which part numbers, drawings, routings and ERP records are controlled. That call is yours and your counsel's, because you are the party releasing the data. We build the seat around your answer, and where a seat cannot be separated from controlled work, we do not fill it.

Controlled unclassified information is simpler. We do not place into any seat that touches CUI, on any contract. That is not a judgment about your control set or your CMMC work. It is a line we do not cross, and it is much cheaper to scope around now than to unwind later.

One boundary is not a scope item and is not negotiable. Finance seats prepare, you approve. No seat we place initiates, approves or releases a payment, wire or transfer, holds a banking credential, or is an authorized voice for confirming or changing payment instructions. That is a condition of the placement, not a setting you can change. Filings and certifications work the same way. The contractor prepares and assembles the packet. The officer who has to sign it signs it.

Where this is the wrong answer for a manufacturer

Nothing on the floor. Machine operation, setup and changeover, tooling, maintenance, receiving, picking, packing and the physical inventory count are not remote work, and we will not be creative about it. Physical inspection is the same: dimensional checks, CMM programming at the machine, first article measurement and source inspection at a supplier. A contractor can keep the paperwork around all of it and cannot perform any of it. At a food plant that logic also keeps us off the preventive controls qualified individual role, which is our own limit rather than a legal one. The document library around the food safety plan is placeable.

Some of it is out because of law rather than distance. A customs broker license is a US citizen role, so your broker stays your broker. Export filings have to be made by someone physically in the United States, so the packet is assembled offshore and filed here. Engineering that gets sealed is licensed work under state law, which is not ours to interpret, so a seat whose output carries a PE stamp is not one we fill.

We are slower to source than a firm that forwards resumes, and that is deliberate: scope the seat, recruit against it, then five gates before you meet anyone. We will not quote a time to shortlist. That makes us wrong for a shutdown push, an ERP go live surge or a two month spike, and wrong for anything inside a bargaining unit. A $500 deposit opens the search and comes back off your first monthly invoice. The commitment when someone starts is 90 days of fees, nothing longer, though the seat is meant to stay filled a year or more.