How Oransi’s CEO Reshored Motor Manufacturing

After more than a decade making air purifiers in China, Oransi reshored a portion of its manufacturing operations to Radford, Virginia, reviving a shuttered 157,000-sq-ft factory.

CEO Peter Mann made the call in 2023, before President Trump’s tariff regime sparked a push for American-based manufacturing. And while he says the motor technology company has benefited from limited tariff exposure, the prime benefit comes down to a new ability to iterate and innovate.

In an interview, Mann shares how he grew Oransi from the ground up, why it reshored and advice for other manufacturing CEOs considering a U.S. move.

What is the history of Oransi and how has the company evolved over the years?

I started Oransi in 2009 to make air purifiers to sell directly to consumers. This was influenced by my son who struggled with asthma. We manufactured the products through a couple contract manufacturers. The business grew consistently, and we introduced several new models with some assembled in the U.S. and others in China.

In 2020, the market exploded due to COVID as air purifiers had a high demand. Prior to COVID, the market was mainly consumer and due to federal funds, the government market was created. In 2021 we merged with Aviemore Technologies, and repositioned ourselves as a motor technology company.

In 2023, we introduced our first air purifier made in-house with our motor technology in Radford. More recently we have expanded to develop products for drones and AI data center cooling.

Several years ago you reshored your manufacturing operations from China to Virginia. Tell us about that.

In 2021, we purchased a 157,000-sq-ft factory that sat idle and brought it back to life. Our transition to making products here was by introducing new products, and we launched the AirMend line in 2023. More recent product development efforts have been on refining our proprietary motor technology, which serves as a platform for motor-driven products.

We still have a couple legacy products that we make overseas and are evaluating whether to continue this or have dual manufacturing—overseas and U.S.—for these products to be nimble in managing the tariffs.

Why did you reshore your operations to the U.S.?

Reshoring gives us control over product development and manufacturing, as well as allowing us to prove out our motor technology at scale. We make our proprietary motors in-house and it makes sense to make the full machine as well, rather than shipping the motor to China to complete the assembly and ship back.

The motor technology is the platform from which all new products will originate, and since the technology is patent pending and offers certain competitive advantages, we will maintain control over the manufacturing.

What have been the benefits of reshoring?

A key benefit is that with an engineering team we are able to iterate to make the products better. For air purifiers, it’s historically been a consumer business with most manufacturing occurring in China. The majority of U.S. air purifier sellers are more marketing companies, which can make it harder to innovate since the manufacturing occurs outside of your business and local area. In a crowded marketplace it becomes harder to differentiate. By reshoring, we are able to tweak the products and try new things.

A second benefit is having less exposure with tariffs. There has been a lot of uncertainty with tariffs this year and in reshoring much of that goes away. Reshoring can also be more cash efficient since manufacturing can be set up to be more just-in-time versus manufacturing overseas, ocean shipping and storing in a warehouse.

Were there any hurdles that you needed to overcome to reshore your manufacturing operations?

First, we had to upgrade our building and make new rooms such as a tool room and production room. I wouldn’t say there were multiple, specific hurdles but more of building a supply chain from scratch—which is a giant hurdle.

It was easier to develop products in China through contract manufacturers there, since their supply is more robust. Building from nothing costs more and takes longer than you would want. In our experience, the U.S. federal government isn’t set up to support manufacturing operations like ours. In my opinion, what they can do doesn’t match the rhetoric. The local government is enthusiastic to support, however they tend to be challenged funding-wise.

What has been the impact of your reshoring on the Radford community?

There are a few other electric motor companies in our area, so we are further solidifying this area as a leader in electric motor manufacturing. We are unique in making a consumer product and that brings a lot of pride to have products made here used in homes and governments across the country.

It’s been rewarding to create jobs and contribute to the local economy. Local government and the economic development community have been very supportive, and we are excited about our future growth now that our motor technology is proven and we begin to introduce innovative products going forward.

What advice do you have for other CEOs contemplating a similar move?

Be patient. If a project takes 10 months in China, it may take 18 months here. Everything seems to move slower here because the China factories are hungry and very good at what they do. Instead of having series of planning meetings where you are trying to get everyone together, calculating costs to support a project, they largely just do it.

And it will cost more than you are used to. Be prepared and look for ways to be innovative and efficient. One of the main cost drivers is labor, so we design our products to minimize assembly time. This means spending more time and effort in designing the parts to eliminate steps in assembly. If our labor costs are say, three times higher, we can minimize that by reducing the time and personnel needed to assemble it. The cost of a product is largely determined by the design.

In addition, raw materials cost a similar amount—however there can be a cost difference in sourcing components, especially where the supply chain has moved overseas. For someone contemplating this move, make sure you have a clear plan and realistic timeline for getting products to market.

What’s next for Oransi?

We launched our oransi.tech site and that highlights the type of products we are working on. I see us introducing new products that leverage our motor technology advantages and focusing more on the B2B side. Electric motors use nearly 50 percent of all electricity and there is a strong need for more efficient, lower cost motors.

Certain applications like AI data center cooling have a preference for American motors and we are well positioned to be a leader in this space. I see us also making improvements to our air cleaning product line to move ahead as this is a very competitive space and product performance keeps improving.