Tweaking competitors and bucking trends, B. Braun Medical CEO Caroll Neubauer has been busy expanding U.S. production over the last few years, raising the domestic manufacturing payroll to about 4,700 now compared with fewer than 3,200 five years ago.

Neubauer has emphasized advanced automation, intense worker training, lean processes and tight integration with product R&D to keep the $1.25bn unit of Germany-based B. Braun a U.S. leader in intravenous systems and other medical devices.

"Some of our competitors have chosen to go to Mexico and other low-priced markets for manufacturing," Neubauer says. "But companies like us who've decided to work in the U.S. and work with high automation have become the happier and luckier ones."

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