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South Beginning
to Challenge Midwest, Northeast?

Employment issues are what keep the machining industries in the traditional industrial centers of the Midwest and Northeast, where machine craft is nurtured.

However, many predict that the Northeast will begin losing out to the less expensive South, especially as the automotive industry has grown there. Despite the South's high hopes for a developing machine tool industry, progress is likely to be slow because of the scarcity of skilled workers.

Getting a serious Southern machining industry up to speed is the goal of Eberspaecher Formenbau and Hummel Formen, two German mold-makers. They are teaming up with Smith's Machine Shop in Cottondale, Ala., to train Smith's employees to be expert mold makers and technicians. According to Michael Tomberlin, reporting for the Birmingham News, mold-making is monopolized by northern cities, and companies in the Southeast have to send their injection molding work north because of the lack of experienced mold-makers in the region.

Dick Walker, spokesman for the National Tooling & Machining Assn. (www.ntma.org) in Fort Washington, Md., is optimistic that with its growing automotive and aerospace industries, Alabama will be "the Detroit of the South."

Walker also sees Charlotte, N.C., as an up and coming city for machining industries. Northeastern cities like Philadelphia and Boston will suffer from the shift, he predicts. Walker has already seen a reduction in NTMA's Northeastern membership over the last five years.

"Companies are moving south and west," he says. "[The ones in the Northeast] are suffering from general high costs, especially real estate costs, taxes and government regulation. It's the type of thing that says, 'You don't really want my business. There's too much bureaucracy, and too little united effort to attract and retain."