by LAURIE JOAN ARON

Beach Mold & Tool, a tooling and machining company headquartered in New Albany, Ind., is in growth mode. Location, in fact, is an ongoing focus for the company.

In addition to its 585,000-sq.-ft. (52,650-sq.-m.) manufacturing facility at the headquarters site and a four-year old 65,000-sq.-ft. (5,850-sq.-m.) manufacturing facility in Emporia, Va., Beach Mold & Tool has recently opened a 65,000-sq.-ft. (5,850-sq.-m.) plant in Reynosa, Mexico, and a 90,000-sq.-ft. (8,100-sq.-m.) one in Queretaro, Mexico.

"We're a very customer-focused company, and our customers are telling us they want us to be in certain locations," says David White, vice president for sales and marketing at Beach Mold & Tool. "They want to take their supply chain with them."

But Beach Mold & Tool isn't just at its customers' beck and call, even though those customers are global OEMs in the automotive, telecommunications, medical and computer industries. The company considers continual site selection due diligence work a vital and daily task. "Every day we're asking where we want to be," notes White.

Beach Mold & Tool considers the Mexican expansions hugely beneficial under NAFTA, especially given the EU's recent NAFTA trade agreement. But Beach Mold & Tool executives continue to look at Eastern Europe and Asia as possible expansion sites. But Mexico's advantages, particularly after the EU agreement, tipped the balance away from moving beyond the Americas.

"The North American continent is still the largest single consumer (of our products). You don't run as quickly as [we might have] a year ago," says White. Unless the OEMs put the pressure on to do so, at least.